Nine more bodies found in Tijuana

Police said Saturday that they had found nine more bodies dumped in this border city, where 49 people were killed last week in violence related to the drug trade.

Municipal police found five of the bodies between two small shopping centers in the eastern part of the city. They had been beaten and their hands bound.

The bodies of two beheaded men were found wrapped in blankets on a road elsewhere in the city, according to the Baja California state attorney general’s office. The heads were in black plastic bags nearby.

A piece of cardboard left by the bodies read, “These are the bricklayer’s people.” On Monday, a message found with 12 bodies next to an elementary school threatened “all of those who are with ‘The Engineer.’ ”

On Friday night, two men were found shot to death in the same empty lot by the school.

State Atty. Gen. Rommel Moreno Manjarrez has blamed the violence on warring leaders in the Arellano Felix gang. More than 400 people have been killed this year in drug-related violence in Tijuana.

Execution-style killings, beheadings and shootouts have soared across Mexico since the army and federal police intensified their fight against the drug trade nearly two years ago.