Thirteen police officers were arrested yesterday after a shootout between military and a group of civilians killed 12 people earlier that morning.

The news outlet Milenio in Mexico City reported that the Ministry of National Defense released a statement, which said military troops doing ground patrols were attacked by an unknown number of people suspected of involvement in organised crime.

The release also stated that 10 attackers and two soldiers died in the clash, which took place in Bamoa station, in the municipality of Guasave, Sinaloa.

According to the north Mexico news outlet Vanguardia, the army seized 14 rifles, four handguns, a grenade launcher, four 40mm-caliber grenades, 95 magazines of various calibres, 1,600 cartridges of different calibers, uniforms and four vehicles (one semi-shielded).

The outlet also notes that the 13 arrested officers were taken to the Attorney General’s Office to give their statements. The office has not made an official statement as to whether the officers are still being detained.

About 50,000 people have died in Mexico from drug-related violence since President Felipe Caldarón began a cartel and trafficking crackdown in 2006. The northwestern state Sinaloa has been one of the most dangerous places in the country.

Mexican forces have captured a key figure in the Sinaloa drug cartel’s northern territory operations. Noel Salgueiro Nevarez, considered a lieutenant of Mexico’s most wanted man Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán, was captured in northern state of Chihuahua on Tuesday. The suspect was arrested “without any shots being fired,” the Defence Secretariat and Attorney General’s Office said.

Salgueiro Nevarez is suspected of founding and leading the ‘Gente Nueva’, a gang accused of carrying out hundreds of crimes in the city of Juárez on behalf of Guzmán, including kidnapping, torture, extortion and murder.

Defence officials said yesterday that the capture of Salgueiro Nevarez would seriously weaken the Sinaloa cartel’s operations both in Mexico and abroad.

The cartel has been linked to the smuggling and distribution of cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine and heroin in the United States.

The arrest comes on the same day that the head of ‘La Familia’ cartel, Martin Rosales Magana, was arrested in Mexico state. The cartel had been responsible for much of the methamphetamine trade in Mexico, although now security forces say that it is almost extinct, with most its leaders either dead or in prison.