NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico (AP) -- Officials flew 17 suspects to Mexico City on Tuesday, a day after a series of shootouts near the U.S. border killed two municipal policemen and terrified hundreds of people.

The local army commander, Gen. Mario Ayon Rodriguez, told reporters that his troops had seized 12 grenade launchers, more than 10,000 cartridges, 25 bulletproof vests and 38 rifles, some of them automatic, in the raid Monday on a house in the Madero neighborhood of Nuevo Laredo, south of Laredo, Texas.

The general said that gunmen staged three separate attacks on city police on Monday, killing two officers and wounding others.

He said troops were told of the presence of armed men at a house and raided it, arresting 17 people and seizing the arsenal.

He said most of those arrested were men in their 20s from the Pacific Coast state of Sinaloa.

The 17 were flown to Mexico City on Tuesday for questioning.

Federal Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha told reporters in the capital on Friday that the shootouts involve "a confrontation between two criminal organizations" and he added, "We are advancing in the investigation."

He said those involved apparently didn't include members of a feared group of army deserters known as the Zetas.

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press.