Explosion kills 2 Mexican soldiers in suspected booby trap by drug cartel after troops found dismembered bodies

An improvised land mine apparently planted by a drug cartel killed two Mexican soldiers and wounded five others, Mexico’s defense secretary said Tuesday. Before the blast, the soldiers had discovered the dismembered bodies of three people, officials said.

Gen. Ricardo Trevilla acknowledged that the army had already suffered six deaths from such improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, between 2018 and 2024. But he didn’t specify whether those six had been killed by bombs dropped from drones, or by buried roadside bombs, both of which have been used by gangs in Mexico.

Trevilla said that devices like the one that exploded Monday were “very rustic,” and officials in the past have described them as similar to buried pipe bombs. There was no immediate information on the condition of the five wounded in the attack, which included at least one officer.

Trevilla’s description of the location where the two soldiers died Monday in the western state of Michoacan suggested that it may have been a sort of grisly drug cartel booby trap.

Read more: CBS News