A Sinaloa Civil War?

The Mayitos and Chapitos set their homeland ablaze

Costa Rica, a village on the outskirts of the Mexican city of Culiacán, was woken early Monday by the sound of shooting as gunmen battled on the streets outside. Across the urban area in the Campiña neighborhood, gunfire also echoed on the avenues before dawn, reportedly of sicarios fighting soldiers.

As light filled the streets of Culiacán, which is the capital of Sinaloa state, residents posted videos of trucks of thugs flashing rifles and even belt-driven machine guns as they rolled down main roads. Another video showed the surreal scene of cartel gunmen in full camo getting on a bus and warning passengers heading into the city there was fighting.

“Shall I turn back?” the driver asked. “It’s up to you, but we are warning that there is a shit load of violence,” the sicario said.

The weary Culichis, as Culiacán residents are known, are no strangers to bloodshed, but there was something especially ominous about Monday’s eruption. As panic (or as some say there “social psychosis”) spread, Sinaloa governor Rubén Rocha announced schools would be closed while most shops shut and people cowered in their homes. Mexican soldiers secured key locations and by early afternoon, several aircraft had arrived with extra contingents of National Guard troops and special forces.

Officially, the death toll for Monday morning was one soldier and two “civilians” killed, which is fairly modest by Mexican standards. But there could have been many more corpses. In Costa Rica, there were a dozen bullet-ridden cars and trucks that were left empty. Had the gunmen just abandoned them, or as can be their custom, taken their dead with them?

Further violence also erupted into the night in Sinaloa towns including Eldorado with reported fatalities. And there were more night videos of convoys of gunmen heading to the city.

While cartel violence happens somewhere in Mexico every day, the episode points to a worrying development: a brewing civil war within the Sinaloa Cartel. The fear is that Monday’s attacks were the first serious shots by the faction of the cartel loyal to Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who was arrested near El Paso on July 25, against the faction of the Chapitos, or sons of El Chapo, accused of betraying him.

It has been over six weeks since that arrest. But the Mayo faction, which is now believed to be under control of his son Ismael Zambada Sicairos, or “Mayo Flaco,” could have been preparing for battle, building up forces and securing alliances with other cartel factions in Sinaloa, Sonora, and Baja California.

An ominous sign that the Mayo-Chapitos war had indeed kicked off was in a recording of a radio transmission…