Mexico Captures Cousin Of Most Wanted Drug Lord

Gutierrez Loera and another man were injured in the exchange of fire, the second bloody confrontation in the past week in Culiacan.

Mexican police on Sunday captured the cousin of the country's most wanted drug lord, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, after a shoot-out in the northwestern city of Culiacan, the blood-stained base of his Sinaloa cartel.

Police said they overpowered six suspected drug traffickers at a house in the Sinaloa state capital who had a huge arsenal of guns, including a grenade launcher and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

Federal police said in a statement one of those captured was Alfonso Gutierrez Loera, who said he was a cousin of Guzman, the head of the Sinaloa cartel who escaped from a high-security prison in a laundry van in 2001.

Gutierrez Loera and another man were injured in the exchange of fire, the second bloody confrontation in the past week in Culiacan.

Hitmen from a rival cartel killed a son of Guzman on Thursday night. About 40 people opened fire on Edgar Guzman as he stepped out of his armored pickup truck outside a shopping center.

President Felipe Calderon has deployed 25,000 troops and federal police to fight the well-armed cartels that smuggle cocaine, marijuana and amphetamines to the United States.

Some 1,100 people have died this year as the drug gangs battle each other and security forces.

Calderon, a conservative, said on Friday that Mexicans had to take back their streets from drug peddlers and gunmen. But the past week has been a blow to Calderon's fight, with six senior policeman killed throughout the country in an escalating murder campaign against police forces.