28 killed in shootout in Mexico

MORELIA, Mexico -- Gunmen apparently from two rival drug gangs fought a ferocious gun battle on a highway in a western Mexico state that killed 28 men yesterday, authorities said.

The attorney general's office in the Pacific coast state of Nayarit said the gunfight started about 5 p.m. near the town of Ruiz, 500 miles northwest of Mexico City.

Police initially responded to a citizen complaint of a kidnapping by a group of armed men in a nearby city who reportedly fled on the federal highway, the prosecutors office said.

As the officers headed toward the scene, they heard a second report of a shootout involving the same men, it said.

Police found 28 men lying dead and four others wounded when they arrived. Ten vehicles were abandoned and bullet casings from high-powered weapons were scattered about.

The statement released late yesterday by the attorney general's office gave no further details. -- AP