Mexico ? Police found 17 bodies stuffed in cars or dumped on streets in garbage bags across Mexico on Monday in the latest wave of violence apparently triggered by warring drug gangs.

Federal investigators say the Sinaloa Cartel is fighting a bloody turf war with the Gulf Cartel and their army of enforcers known as the Zetas over billion-dollar drug trafficking routes to the United States. The battle has led to beheadings, grenade attacks and execution-style killings across Mexico, and the violence has taken a particularly heavy toll on police.

President Felipe Calderon, who took power in December, has launched a nationwide offensive against the gangs, sending 24,000 federal police and soldiers to areas ravaged by violence.

But killings have continued unabated. According to a tally kept by Mexico City daily El Universal, there have been more than 700 drug slayings since January.