PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Coahuila — Government officials from this border state have confirmed that cartel gunmen hijacked and kidnapped 15 passengers from bus that was headed from Tamaulipas to Coahuila. While the Tamaulipas government remains silent, the fate of the sequestered remains unknown.

“It was a bus passenger that was the subject of the aggression in a neighboring state,” said Victor Zamora, the Coahuila Secretary of State in a broadcasted interview. “They were stopped by gunmen in trucks, they had 15 passengers get down before the driver was able to close the door and come to our installations where they requested help.”

Zamora did not disclose the actual city or state where the kidnapping took place during his interview, but mass kidnapping comes at a time when rival factions of the Los Zetas drug cartel are fighting for control of the Texas border primarily in the state of Tamaulipas. As Breitbart Texas has been reporting, the highways along the Mexican border are largely under the control of Mexican cartels that continue to set up roadblocks, hijack buses and vehicles, as well as carry out other criminal activities virtually unimpeded.

On Wednesday evening, the Government of Coahuila issued a prepared statement confirming the original information and providing additional details. The hijacked bus was from the Transportes Frontera line and had just left the border city of Nuevo Laredo in Tamaulipas when the gunmen ordered the bus to stop and then broke some of the windows after the driver tried to flee. Once the bus stopped, the gunmen forced 15 passengers off the vehicle and then threatened the driver’s life. As soon as the bus pulled up to a checkpoint in Coahuila, authorities noticed the broken windows and questioned the driver.

As Breitbart Texas has been reporting, the faction known as Grupo Bravo / Vieja Escuela Z has been trying to take control away from the faction known as Cartel Del Noreste (CDN). Currently, CDN is the dominant cartel in Coahuila, that while keeping a low profile is able to keep moving large quantities of drugs and illegal immigrants into Texas.

The fighting has resulted in several large scale gun battles, kidnappings, beheading, dismemberments and several other gory methods of execution that are routinely photographed or video taped and then disseminated on social media.

Moments after the kidnapping, Mexican law enforcement sources confirmed to Breitbart Texas that a passenger bus traveling along a border highway near the town of Nueva Ciudad Guerrero, Tamaulipas.

Mass kidnappings of passenger buses is a common practice in use by the Los Zetas drug cartel as a way to weed out their rivals who may be trying to enter territories undetected. That was the excuse given by members of the Los Zetas cartel in 2011 in San Fernando, Tamaulipas, after they kidnapped and murdered scores of bus passengers. As Breitbart Texas previously reported, Mexican authorities found 47 mass graves and recovered 193 unidentified bodies from victims believed to have been taken off passenger buses by Los Zetas.

Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by “J.M. Martinez” from Piedras Negras, Coahuila, and Tony Aranda from Monterrey, Nuevo León.