Mexico: 43 dead in 3-hour firefight on ranch in west

ECUANDUREO, Mexico (AP) - At least 43 people died Friday in what authorities described as a fierce, three-hour gunbattle between federal forces and suspected drug gang gunmen on a ranch in western Mexico, the deadliest such confrontation in recent memory.

All the dead were suspected criminals except for one federal police officer, National Security Commissioner Monte Alejandro Rubido said. He said the officer died trying to help a colleague wounded in the shootout.

Photographs from the scene showed bodies, some with semi-automatic rifles and others without weapons, lying in fields, near farm equipment and on a blood-stained patio strewn with clothes, mattresses and sleeping bags. Video obtained by The Associated Press showed federal police coming under fire and bodies strewn throughout a ranch.

Rubido said the suspects were members of "a criminal organization operating in Jalisco state," but did not mention the Jalisco New Generation, the drug cartel that dominates the area where the battle erupted and has grown rapidly in recent years to become one of Mexico's biggest organized crime groups.

The federal force called for air and ground support, which included a police helicopter.