Nine bodies found in Mexican mass grave

MEXICO CITY, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Mexican police have found the remains of nine bodies buried in makeshift graves in the back yard of a house in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, known for drug-related violence and rampant crime, the public security ministry said on Wednesday.

It said police recently seized 1.7 tonnes of marijuana and arrested two people at the house and first came across the bodies last Thursday. There was no immediate word on the identities of the victims or how they had died.

Ciudad Juarez has caught world-wide attention in recent years due to a series of brutal murders of women that have gone largely unsolved and rising drug killings.

Mexico's northern states have become a battleground for powerful drug cartels vying for control of the best routes to transport narcotics into the United States.

President Felipe Calderon's year-old army-backed assault on drug cartels has started to push up narcotics prices in the United States.

More than 2,500 people died in 2007 in fighting among cartels, and clashes with security forces. Over 300 people have been killed so far this year.

(Reporting by Cyntia Barrera Diaz, editing by Alan Elsner)