Arrest over Mexican drug murders

Police stand guard outside the drug treatment centre in Juarez

The murders happened in a drug rehab clinic in Juarez

A senior member of a Mexican drug cartel has been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the murders of 17 people at a rehab centre, reports say.

Jose Rodolfo Escajeda, a suspected hitman and drug smuggler, was held in connection with the murders in the city of Juarez, near the border with Texas.

He has long been on wanted lists held by both the Mexican government and the US Drug Enforcement Administration.

Meanwhile, a state politician and his family were killed in Tabasco state.

The bodies of Jose Francisco Fuentes - a state congressional candidate - his wife and two young sons were found with many bullet wounds at their house in the state capital, Villahermosa, according to state Attorney General Rafael Gonzalez Lastra.

Authorities in the state have in recent days arrested gunmen suspected of working for Mexico's notorious Gulf drug cartel

Turf wars

According to Mexican media reports, Mr Escajeda was arrested by Mexican troops on Friday.

Thought to be a senior figure in the Juarez cartel, he is suspected of involvement in the attack last week in which gunmen stormed into a drug treatment clinic, lined patients up against a wall and killed at least 17 of them.

The BBC's Stephen Gibbs, in Mexico, says the attack shocked even the violence-weary residents of Ciudad Juarez, where there have been an average of 10 murders every day this year.

Juarez is the setting of a vicious turf war, principally between two gangs - the Juarez cartel, and the Sinaloa cartel, which is led by Mexico's most wanted man and reported billionaire, Joaquin Guzman.

The gangs are fighting for control of the local drug market, and smuggling routes into the United States.

About 1,400 people have died in Juarez's drug violence this year.

Thousands of extra police and troops have been deployed in Ciudad Juarez to try to stem the violence.

More than 13,000 people have been killed since the Mexican government ordered the military to take the offensive against the drug gangs in 2006.