At least 40 dead in gun battle between soldiers and drugs gang in Mexico

More than 40 people have been killed in what authorities said was a fierce battle between suspected drug gang gunmen and government forces on a ranch in western Mexico – the deadliest such confrontation in recent memory.

All the dead were suspected criminals except for one federal police officer, who died trying to help a colleague wounded in the shoot-out, national security commissioner Monte Alejandro Rubido said.