AGUILILLA, Aug 1 — Vigilantes armed with AK-47 rifles watch over Aguililla from a hilltop while police reinforcements patrol the western Mexican town, bracing for any counter-attack by the Knights Templar cartel.

The federal government deployed troops and police to towns like Aguililla in the embattled state of Michoacan two months ago to bring an end to the cartel’s reign of violence, but the powerful gang has launched bold attacks on the authorities.

The Knights Templar cartel, which is believed to have retrenched into the rough mountain terrain, is accused of killing a senior Mexican navy officer and his assistant in an ambush last Sunday. Three suspects were detained in the case.

The white sport-utility vehicle of Vice Admiral Carlos Miguel Salazar Ramonet was riddled with bullets after it was attacked on a rural road near the town of Churintzio. His wife and driver were wounded in the shooting.

Last week, federal police clashed with armed commandos in seven separate gunfights, leaving four officers and 20 suspects dead.

In Aguililla, a town of 17,000 people, residents are taking no chances despite the presence of new federal police officers. They walk around with assault rifles or handguns, patrolling the streets and the wooded mountains.

“This is a war,” Jorge Vazquez Valencia, head of the Aguililla vigilante group, told AFP.

“People are armed, ready and in their homes. The moment we get a battle, the order is for them to shoot from their windows and rooftops but that they don’t go out in the open,” he said. “We aren’t soldiers, we aren’t guerrillas. We are ordinary people.”

Community self-policing groups began to emerge in April in several towns of Tierra Caliente, a region whose name means Hot Land that is known as a major producer of limes, avocadoes and an illegal crop: marijuana.

The Knights Templar have drawn inspiration from religion, using a red cross as their symbol which they have displayed in public, painting it on walls and the side of their vehicles.

Residents took up arms because they were fed up of the cartel’s murders, threats and kidnappings. The gang demanded a “protection” tax from businesses, from sawmills to lime growers, and torched any companies that refused to pay up.

Aguililla waited until June 26, after the police showed up, to form a vigilante group. The town has been under the thumb of various cartels for years.

“There were 10 of us at first. As time went on, more and more people joined us,” said Uriel Contreras, a leader of the self-defense group who was barking orders to fellow vigilantes manning a checkpoint.

The residents of Aguililla are unable to venture out of town and they have lacked fuel for the past three weeks. The federal police has been ambushed on the road leading to the town.

Residents say the mayor, Jesus Cruz Valencia, is a cousin of a Knights Templar capo and has not been seen since the self-defense group was formed, town residents said.

“We were prisoners of the cartels. They were meting out justice,” Vazquez said.

“If there was any controversy, any debt problem between individuals, a deal, people wouldn’t go to the authorities, they would go to the head of the plaza (cartel turf), the head of the cartel to fix the situation,” he said.

The Knights Templar have accused the vigilante groups of being fronts for their rivals, the Jalisco New Generation cartel, which is fighting for control of Michoacan, a key state for traffickers because South American narcotics land on its Pacific coast.

Resident of Michoacan say the security situation deteriorated in 2011 when the Knights Templar exhausted their resources on turf wars. Looking for easy money, the gang began to extort money from businesses and farmers.

“They became abusive with people. They stole cows, charged a protection tax. Sometimes they would kill innocent people,” said Jose Antonio Jimenez Chavez, a member of the self-defense group.

Aguililla has been a key town for drug traffickers for more than a decade. Residents say the town prospered after the Valencia brothers began to produce marijuana and formed the Milenio cartel in 1999.

The gang later joined forces with La Familia Michoacana cartel, whose founder, Nazario Moreno, alias “El Chayo,” is said by police to have been killed in 2010. The Knights Templar cartel was founded afterward by members of La Familia.

But Moreno’s body was never found and Aguililla residents—as well as a federal police officer in the area who requested anonymity—believe he is now leading the Knights Templar. – AFP