VILLA UNION, Mexico -- When dozens of pickups crowded with armed men and mounted machine guns roared into Villa Union, residents of the small town near the U.S. border began to realize they were the target of a military-style invasion. What followed were hours long gunbattles between a cartel force estimated to number 70 to 150 men and state police that left 23 people dead. At least 50 homes and buildings were riddled with bullet holes.
In the aftermath, authorities found about 20 abandoned vehicles, some with machine-gun turrets and welded armoring; the doors of many were professionally printed with the initials of a drug cartel. At least four had .50-caliber mounted machine guns.
In a statement Tuesday, the Coahuila state government raised the death toll by one from 22 previously and said 10 suspects had been arrested. Gov. Miguel Riquelme said most of those detained were minors.
Townsfolk, most of whom asked that their names not be used for fear of reprisals, described how the day of terror unfolded:
On Saturday, at 10 a.m., residents of the town of 6,000 were still recovering from Thanksgiving, when hundreds of relatives return from the United States to join their families in a border version of the holiday many refer to as Dia del Pavo, or Turkey Day.
A roast chicken stand began heating up the rotisserie Saturday for the day's business.
About 11:30 a.m., residents on the east side of Villa Union -- the side closest to the border city of Nuevo Laredo where a splinter of the Zetas cartel had its base -- started seeing convoys of pickups rolling into town.
One shop owner counted 20 trucks but stopped counting when he saw that some had Texas plates -- or no plates at all. He knew that meant they weren't police. Others began seeing pickups with the letters "CDN" on their side. "CDN" stands for "Cartel del Noreste," or "Cartel of the Northeast," one of the splinter groups of the old Zetas.
By 11:45 a.m., people began to hide.
The shop owner who noticed the odd license plates dove into his shop and hid behind the counter. The attackers began firing on the town hall.
Beside the town hall, the objective of the attack, parish priest Federico de los Santos was in his church along with a half-dozen parishioners when the gunfire began. They threw themselves to the ground as the bullets flew.
According to Riquelme, the detained suspects said they took gasoline with the intention of torching the town hall but were unable to do so after they dropped the fuel.
By noon, the attackers split into at least two groups, and headed toward the west side of town, apparently unaware that army troops and state police had been dispatched from the nearest barracks to the west of Villa Union.
The attackers abducted three civilians: two firefighters and an employee of the town's public works department. Two were later found dead.
The gunmen also abducted five young men, apparently intending to use the civilians as guides to escape along the dirt roads that circle the town.
About 12:30 p.m., the cartel convoys ran into the state police and soldiers on the west side of town, with one especially fierce firefight breaking out near a gas station.
In the ensuing gunbattles, residents recorded the sound of repeated, sequential fire from assault rifles and the steady chatter of machine guns in long bursts. The gunfight lasted for an hour and a half and left four state police officers and at least nine attackers dead.
On Sunday, reinforcements were rushed into the town. Five missing boys turned up alive.
A Section on 12/04/2019