<div><span style="font-size: 1rem;">Ten soldiers and 19 suspected criminals were killed in an operation to arrest a son of jailed drug trafficker Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, Mexico’s government said Friday, with a dramatic shootout sowing terror at an airport.</span><br></div><div><br></div><div>Thousands of soldiers retook control of the Sinaloa cartel stronghold of Culiacan, which resembled a war zone after furious gunmen went on the rampage to try to free their boss.</div><div><br></div><div>Ovidio Guzman was captured in the northwestern city on Thursday and flown to Mexico City before being transferred to the high-security Altiplano prison in central Mexico from which “El Chapo” escaped in 2015.</div><div><br></div><div>The 32-year-old, nicknamed “El Raton” (The Mouse), had allegedly helped to run his father’s operations since the former Sinaloa cartel boss was extradited to the United States in 2017.</div><div><br></div><div>A colonel who commanded an infantry battalion was among those killed after his team came under attack following the arrest, Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval told reporters.</div><div><br></div><div>Another 35 soldiers sustained gunshot wounds and were taken to hospital, while 21 gunmen were arrested.</div><div><br></div><div>Sandoval said a civilian airliner that was about to take off from Culiacan International Airport, as well as two Mexican Air Force aircraft, were hit as cartel henchmen tried to free Ovidio Guzman.</div><div><br></div><div>The military planes “had to make an emergency landing” after receiving “a significant number of impacts,” said Sandoval.</div><div><br></div><div>No injuries resulted from the plane attacks and Culiacan airport resumed operations on Friday.</div><div><br></div><div>The United States had issued a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to Ovidio Guzman’s capture. It accuses him of being a key player in the Sinaloa cartel founded by his father.</div><div><br></div><div>The arrest came as Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador prepared to welcome his US counterpart Joe Biden for a North America leaders’ summit next week where security is expected to be high on the agenda.</div><div><br></div><div>The drug trafficker’s detention was “not an insignificant accomplishment by Mexican authorities,” US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.</div><div><br></div><div>“And we’re certainly grateful for that,” he said, adding that the United States would keep working “in lockstep” with Mexico, notably to tackle trafficking of the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl.</div><div><br></div><div>Mexico denied that the United States had been involved in the operation to catch Ovidio Guzman.</div><div><br></div><div>“We act autonomously, independently. Yes there is cooperation and there will continue to be, but we make the decisions as a sovereign government,” Lopez Obrador told reporters.</div><div><br></div><div>He said calm had returned to Culiacan, where security forces removed dozens of stolen and burnt out vehicles scattered throughout the city of 800,000 people.</div><div><br></div><div>Videos on social media Thursday showed passengers and Aeromexico airline employees ducking behind counters as gunfire rang out at Culiacan airport.</div><div><br></div><div>Cartel gunmen set cars and trucks ablaze at several intersections in the city, and authorities reported 19 roadblocks.</div><div><br></div><div>El Chapo is serving a life sentence in the United States for trafficking hundreds of tons of drugs into the country over the course of 25 years.</div><div><br></div><div>However, his cartel remains one of the most powerful in Mexico, accused by Washington of exploiting an opioid epidemic by flooding communities in the United States with fentanyl, a synthetic drug about 50 times more potent than heroin.</div><div><br></div><div>Ovidio Guzman and one of his brothers are accused of overseeing nearly a dozen methamphetamine labs in Sinaloa as well as conspiring to distribute cocaine and marijuana, according to the US State Department.</div><div><br></div><div>Ovidio Guzman also allegedly ordered the murders of informants, a drug trafficker and a Mexican singer who refused to perform at his wedding, it said.</div><div><br></div><div>He was captured briefly once before in 2019, but security forces freed him after his cartel waged an all-out war in response.</div><div><br></div><div>His release prompted sharp criticism of Lopez Obrador, who said the decision was made to protect civilians’ lives.</div><div><br></div><div>Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard has played down the prospects of a fast-track extradition, saying Ovidio Guzman was expected to face legal proceedings in Mexico.</div><div><br></div><div>Mexico has registered more than 340,000 murders since the government controversially deployed the army to fight drug cartels in 2006, most of them blamed on criminal gangs. - AFP&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>bnbd24/fas</div>