Police at the jail just outside the city of Durango said the brawl started at breakfast when prisoners linked to the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel clashed with new arrivals from the rival Gulf cartel and its armed wing, the Zetas. [break]
"There are 23 dead, all inmates," said General Moises Melo Garcia, head of the army in Durango.
Once quiet Durango, long a stronghold of Mexico´s top smuggler Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, has become a battleground for rival cartels fighting over smuggling routes into the United States. Mexico´s brutal drug war has killed more than 17,000 people since late 2006.
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