Twelve suspected drug traffickers died and two others were hurt in a clash with police in central Mexico on Friday, a public security official told AFP.
Public Security Ministry spokesman Jose Antonio Cano said the suspected traffickers had attacked federal, state and local police in Guanajuato State, and that authorities had not yet identified which drug cartel they belonged to.
More than 10,000 have died in gangland-style violence since President Felipe Calderon launched a military crackdown on the country's powerful drug cartels two and a half years ago.
The attorney general's office said earlier Friday that nine suspected members of the Beltran Leyva drug cartel had been detained in northwest Mexico after another clash with police in which one other also died.
Twelve people also died in suspected drug attacks in mainly northern border areas overnight Thursday, local officials said.
In the country's most violent city, Ciudad Juarez on the northern border, suspected drug hitmen shot dead a waitress in the city center.
Eight others died in separate incidents in the city across from El Paso, Texas, and two died in state capital Chihuahua.
Police meanwhile found a body inside a plastic bag with messages stuck on the chest and legs in the eastern state of Veracruz, local investigators said.
