Mexico City bomb query moves closer to drug cartel
MEXICO CITY, March 4 (Reuters) - A probe into a botched bomb attack in Mexico City moved closer to the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel on Tuesday as a top prosecutor said an arms dealer from the northwestern state ordered the attack.
Mexico City attorney general Rodolfo Felix said last week that a man who died last month in a bungled bombing aimed at a police chief was working for drug traffickers.
On Tuesday, Felix said a Sinaloa man nicknamed "El Patron" (The Boss) appeared to be behind the attack. Mexican media say the man is an operative of the Sinaloa cartel, headed by Mexico's most-wanted man, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman.
"The order ... came from outside Mexico City, from Sinaloa in particular," Felix said. "A man, nicknamed El Patron ... is the one who could have ordered the attack."
The bomb attack failed when the homemade explosive went off prematurely, killing the man who apparently meant to plant it by a city police chief's car and injuring an accomplice.
Felix showed the media a sketch of El Patron, a bearded man in his mid-thirties who security analysts say is the Sinaloa cartel's gatekeeper for drug distribution in Mexico City.
Police have been questioning the bomber's accomplice, who was badly burned in the explosion, and have arrested half a dozen others they believe are connected to the attack.
The bomb attack has sparked fears that Mexico's warring drug cartels, whose gangland-style murders left more than 2,500 people dead last year, could start a bombing campaign in response to the government's army-backed crackdown on them. (Reporting by Cyntia Barrera Diaz; Editing by Catherine Bremer and Doina Chiacu)
