Authorities struggled Monday to identify 49 bodies without heads, hands or feet to gain clues into the latest in a series of massacres from an escalating war between Mexico's two dominant drug cartels, with increasing evidence that innocents are being pulled into the bloodbath along with gang rivals.

Authorities struggled Monday to identify the 49 people found mutilated and scattered in a pool of blood in a region near the U.S .border in the presumed fight between Mexico's two dominant drug cartels to outdo each other in bloodshed and expand their territory and smuggling routes.

Police found 49 mutilated bodies scattered in a pool of blood near the border with the U.S., a region where Mexico's two dominant drug cartels are trying to outdo each other in bloodshed while warring over smuggling routes.

Forty-nine bodies with their heads, hands and feet hacked off were found Sunday dumped on a northern Mexico highway leading to the Texas border in what appeared to be the latest carnage in an escalating war between Mexico's two dominant drug cartels.