Mexican police find 49 bodies in north: Officials

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Mexican police said Sunday they had found 49 mutilated bodies dumped in black plastic bags near the northern city of Monterrey, in an apparent flare up of brutal drug violence.

A spokesperson for the state of Nuevo Leon said that 49 bodies had been counted after their discovery on an isolated stretch of a highway 180 kilometers (110 miles) from the US border.

The find comes just days after police discovered the dismembered, decapitated bodies of 18 people in two abandoned vehicles in western Mexico, in what appeared to be a revenge killing involving powerful drug gangs.

Just a few days earlier, there were 23 killings in the city of Nuevo Laredo, in Tamaulipas state which borders the United States, comprising nine people found hanging from a bridge and 14 others that had been decapitated.

Suspected drug gang violence has risen across the country this month, with scores of deaths attributed to massacres and clashes with security forces.

Authorities have blamed much of the deadly violence on battles between the Zetas – a gang set up by ex-commandos that deserted in the 1990s – and groups allied to the Sinaloa Federation of Mexico's most wanted drug lord, Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman.