Arturo Beltran Leyva, Top Mexican Drug Lord Dead After Clash

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican security forces killed drug lord Arturo Beltran Leyva, one of the most wanted traffickers in both Mexico and the United States, in a gunfight on Wednesday, the Navy said.

Beltran Leyva, the head of a cartel of the same name he ran with his four brothers, was killed in a luxury residential complex in the southern city of Cuernavaca.

“We confirm the death of Arturo Beltran Leyva. He was killed in a navy operation in Cuernavaca,” said a navy captain who declined to be named.

The Navy said in a statement that four bodyguards had died together with Beltran Leyva, an ally turned foe of Mexico’s No.1 most wanted man Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman.

The death of Beltran Leyva, who dubbed himself “The Boss of Bosses,” is a victory for President Felipe Calderon, who launched a war against the cartels in 2006.

Navy forces have increasingly joined army troops and federal police in the fight.

(Reporting by Robin Emmott and Robert Campbell; editing by Todd Eastham)