Mexican city erupts in violence, residents ordered to stay indoors after drug cartel leader's arrest

Canada's government is urging Canadians in Mexico's Sinaloa state to limit their movements and shelter in place amid an outbreak of violence in the country's northwest following the arrest of a notorious drug cartel's leader.

Mexican authorities on Thursday confirmed the arrest of Ovidio Guzman, a 32-year-old senior member of the Sinaloa Cartel and a son of jailed kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

His arrest unleashed a violent backlash by gang gunmen on Thursday that shut the airport in the city of Culiacan as authorities told residents to stay indoors.

Videos shared on social mediaappeared to show heavy fighting overnight in Culiacan, the main city in the northern state of Sinaloa, with the sky lit up by helicopter gunfire.

The city's airport was the target of violence, with Mexican airline Aeromexico saying one of its planes had been hit by gunfire ahead of a scheduled flight to Mexico City. No one was hurt, the airlinesaid, but the airport was closed until Thursday night.

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On Thursday afternoon, Global Affairs Canada warned Canadians in Sinaloa to take extra care, especially in the cities ofCuliacn, Mazatln, Los Mochis and Guasave.

It advised Canadians to avoid demonstrations and gatherings and not to attempt to cross road blockades. It also recommended contacting their airline or tour operator to change travel arrangements if necessary, and to monitor local media and follow the instructions of local authorities.

The Culiacn and Mazatln airports were closed and all flights were suspended at Los Mochis airport until further notice, Global Affairs said.

On Thursday afternoon, Aeromexico announced it was also suspending operations in Obregn, a six-hour drive northwest ofCuliacan.

Ovidio, who has become a key figure in the cartel since the arrest of his father, was briefly detained in 2019 but was quickly released to end violent retribution in Culiacan from his gang. The incident was an embarrassing setback for the government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Residents told to stay indoors

On Thursday morning, security forces were attempting to contain a violent reaction to the arrest in the Culiacan area by Guzman's associates.

Burned vehicles were scattered on the streets and heavily armed law enforcement patrolled in pickup trucks.

"We continue to work on controlling the situation," said Cristobal Castaneda, Sinaloa's public security chief.

Local government urged people to stay indoors and said schools and administrative offices were closed due to the violence. Street blockades had also been erected.

"We ask the citizens of Culiacan not to leave home due to the blockades that have occurred in different parts of the city," Culiacan Mayor Juan de Dios Gamez wrote on Twitter.

Arrest days before Trudeau, Biden visit

Ovidio's latest capture comes before a North American leaders' summit in Mexico City next week, which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Joe Biden will attend, and at which security issues are on the agenda.

One of the Mexican officials said Guzman's arrest was likely to prove a welcome addition to U.S.-Mexico cooperation on security ahead of Biden's visit. The United States had offered a $5 million US reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Ovidio.

It is not yet clear whether Ovidio will be extradited to the United States like his father, who is serving a life sentence at Colorado's Supermax, the most secure U.S. federal prison.

Joaquin Guzman, 65, was convicted in New York in 2019 of trafficking billions of dollars of drugs to the United States and conspiring to murder enemies.

Eduardo Guerrero, director of Lantia Consulting which analyzes Mexican organized crime, said that recent pressure from the Biden administration to target the Sinaloa Cartel had likely motivated Mexico to go after Guzman.

But he warned that while Ovidio's capture was likely to weaken that cartel, it could help their main rival, the notoriously violent Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

Crackdown on fentanyl

A surge in overdose deaths in the United States, fuelled by the synthetic opioid fentanyl, has led to increased pressure on Mexico to combat the organizations such as the Sinaloa Cartel responsible for producing and shipping the drug.

The cartel is one of the world's most powerful narcotics trafficking organizations.

For Tomas Guevara, a security expert at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa, Guzman's arrest helps save face for Mexican law enforcement following the humiliation of having to let El Chapo's son go in 2019.

"The detention of Ovidio is finally the culmination of something that was planned three years ago," he said.

It might also herald a change in approach by the government, Guevara added, after criticism from many security experts that Lopez Obrador was soft on the cartels, an accusation he denies.

The president argues the confrontational tactics of his predecessors were unsuccessful and only caused more bloodshed, saying he would instead pursue a strategy of "hugs not bullets."