BATTLE OVER TOWN

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 621, 25 March 1929, Page 9

BATTLE OVER TOWN

REBELS TAKE OFFENSIVE WAR RAGES IN MEXICO NEW YORK, Saturday. The Mexico City correspondent of the “New York Times” says warships, airplanes, artillery, cavalry, infantry, and other units are engaged in a battle at Mazatlan, Mexcio’s leading Pacific ; port, which has been going on since three o’clock on Friday morning. This information was rather startling, in view of yesterday’s optimistic news from the Mazatlan front, which gave the impression that a battle for possession of the city was practically out of the question. There are no reports yet concerning the losses of either side, but that the rebels are making a determined effort to take possession of the city in advance of the arrival of Federal reinforcements appears certain. For the first time since the outbreak of the revolt, the rebels are undertaking a real offensive, which some persons interpret as an entire change of policy, as hitherto the rebels have abandoned without offering resistance all the cities held by them in Monterey, Saltillo, and Torreon sectors. The report that Mr. Blocker, the American consul at Mazatlan, had been killed in a Federal and rebel clash, is discounted. Despatches from the Yaqui Valley, in Sonora, indicate that the area is being evacuated by foreigners, and that the rebels have threatened to seize their property.