MEXICO CITY: Mexican authorities have found 14 dismembered bodies near the US border, an official said, the latest grisly remains from drug violence that has killed tens of thousands since 2006.

"These 14 bodies were apparently left in a van in the early hours of the morning with a message directed at an organized crime group," the official in the Tamaulipas state government said on condition of anonymity.

The official did not provide further details about the message or who might have been behind the attack.

The bodies of men who appeared to be in their 30s were found early Tuesday in Nuevo Laredo, dismembered and packed into black plastic bags inside the van.

Mexican troops had rushed to the scene after receiving an anonymous warning.

The border city has been one of the hardest-hit in a crime wave that has swept the country since 2006, when the government launched a military crackdown on powerful drug cartels locked in brutal turf wars with one another.

Some 50,000 people are believed to have been killed in the last five years.

Nuevo Laredo, a border town just across from Laredo, Texas, has been a major battleground for the Gulf and Zetas cartels, former allies now fighting over lucrative trade routes north to the United States. AFP