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"It could be used to manufacture bombs, as well as mines and other explosive artifacts that would be capable of damaging highly armored vehicles," the Navy Department said in a statement.
The military discovered the dynamite in a cave-like structure in the northern state of Sinaloa, headquarters of the powerful drug cartel of the same name.
In nearby raids, Marines also found three other drug labs with almost one ton of "nearly finished" meth, toxic drugs headed for the U.S.
In July, a competing drug cartel exploded a series of seven roadway bombs in western Mexico that killed four police officers and two civilians. According to the governor of Jalisco, the blasts were a trap set by the cartel to kill law enforcement personnel. The bombs tore craters in the road, destroyed at least four vehicles and wounded 14 people.
The attacks were the latest example of the increasingly open, military-style might possessed by the country’s drug cartels. A National Guard officer in the neighboring state of Guanajuato was killed by a bomb in June and last year, explosives wounded 10 soldiers and a civilian in the neighboring state of Michoacan.
Cartels are also incorporating trench warfare, pillboxes, homemade armored cars, and drones modified to drop small bombs in their battles against each other and the police.
The militaristic power of the cartels, which have become increasingly wealthy by flooding the U.S. with illicit drugs, demonstrates how ineffective U.S. and Mexican authorities are against stopping the scourge of drugs in America.