REYNOSA, Tamaulipas — Residents in this border city woke up to the sound of a massive firefight between members of the Mexican military and suspected gunmen from the Gulf Cartel. Mexican military forces used an automatic mini-gun mounted to a helicopter, firing 100 rounds per second on the cartel operatives.

The early morning battle was reported in the Villa Esmeralda and the Fuentes Lomas neighborhoods in this city, where military personnel had been carrying out a raid to capture key leaders within the Gulf Cartel.

A citizen journalist recorded the moments when a helicopter circled around the neighborhood and fired off hundreds of rounds from the likely M134 minigun.

While government officials have not yet released information as to the number of casualties, local residents claim that at least a dozen cartel gunmen were killed.

The most recent skirmish comes three days after another battle where one cartel member died and two others were arrested. The shootout took place on Wednesday morning near Puerta Del Sol Avenue when the gunmen began firing at Tamaulipas state police while trying to evade capture, information provided to Breitbart Texas by government officials revealed.

One cartel shooter fired a machine gun at authorities while others deployed road spikes in an effort slow down law enforcement. The chase ended when the driver lost control and crashed; one of the passengers got out firing a machine pistol. Authorities killed that gunman while two others in the vehicle surrendered.

Law enforcement officials revealed to Breitbart Texas that Wednesday’s shootout was part of an ongoing operation by state and military forces to capture the current leadership of the Gulf Cartel in Reynosa.

The use of the minigun is the second case where citizen journalists have been able to record heavy duty machine guns in operation against cartel members. Breitbart Texas recently reported on a similar case in Tepic, Nayarit, where Mexican marines used the high-speed machine gun against the Beltran Leyva Cartel.

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 “A.C Del Angel” from Reynosa, Tamaulipas.