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		</div><p>Mexican authorities say they backed off an attempt to capture a son of former drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman after cartel gunmen shooting heavy weapons and burning vehicles paralysed the capital of Sinaloa state.</p>
<p>Twenty-one people were wounded, state public security secretary Cristobal Castaneda said, and 27 inmates escaped from a prison, as law enforcement officers were apparently outgunned.</p>
<div data-google-query-id="CPqxpaOZpuUCFdRYFQgdrMwAAg">Security secretary Alfonso Durazo said 30 members of the National Guard and army were patrolling in Culiacan when they were fired on from a house on Thursday. They repelled the attack and inside the house found Ovidio Guzman Lopez, son of the convicted Sinaloa cartel boss.</div>
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<p>The house was then surrounded by heavily armed gunmen who had “a greater force” and authorities decided to suspend the operation, Mr Durazo said.</p>
<p>He did not say if Ovidio Guzman had been arrested or went free, but he told Televisa that security forces left the house without him.</p>
<p><em>“With the goal of safeguarding the well-being and tranquillity of Culiacan society, officials in the security cabinet decided to suspend the actions,”</em> Mr Durazo said.</p>
<p>President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he backed the decisions of his security officials, and added that the army operation was based on an arrest warrant.</p>
<p><em>“The capture of one criminal cannot be worth more than the lives of people,”</em> Mr Lopez Obrador said, calling the response to the operation “very violent” and saying many lives were put at risk.</p>
<p><em>“This decision was made to protect citizens. You cannot fight fire with fire,”</em> he added. <em>“We do not want deaths. We do not want war.”</em></p>
<p>Jose Luis Gonzalez Meza, a lawyer for El Chapo’s family, told the Associated Press that Guzman’s family said “Ovidio is alive and free”, but had no more details about what happened.</p>
<p>Ovidio was not one of the jailed Mexican drug lord’s best-known sons — Ivan Archivaldo Guzman and Jesus Alfredo Guzman are known as “los Chapitos”, or “the little Chapos”, and are believed to run their father’s Sinaloa cartel with Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.</p>
<p>But Ovidio Guzman was indicted in 2018 by a grand jury in Washington, along with a fourth brother, for the alleged trafficking of cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana.</p>
<p>Culiacan exploded in violence on Thursday with armed civilians in trucks roaring through the city’s centre shooting sniper rifles and machine guns.</p>
<p>Videos published on social media showed a scene resembling a war zone, with gunmen, some wearing black ski masks over their faces, riding in the back of trucks firing mounted machine guns as vehicles burned.</p>
<p>People could be seen running for cover as machine gun fire rattled around them, and drivers drove in reverse to get away from the clashes.</p>
<p>Mr Castaneda told Milenio television there were people wounded but did not provide a casualty figure. He did not rule out that there were deaths.</p>
<p>State officials asked residents to avoid going out in parts of city, and Sinaloa’s football club Dorados announced it had cancelled a game for security concerns.</p>
<p>Govenor Quirino Ordaz confirmed that school classes had been suspended but businesses would open on Friday.</p>
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