CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Mexican troops turned the tables on three suspected drug hit men on Friday, shooting them dead after an ambush in the desert near the U.S. border, where cartel violence has killed 21 others this week.

Three gunmen opened fire on soldiers hunting for gangsters near a farming town in Chihuahua state, over the border from El Paso, Texas and tried to lob grenades, but were shot by the troops, army spokesman Enrique Torres said.

The violence followed fierce gunbattles on Tuesday in the same area, near the town of Villa Ahumada, where drug gangs abducted local police and shot six people, triggering an army raid that left 14 dead. An army sergeant was also killed by the drug gang.

Tuesday's violence left bodies strewn across the desert in one of the bloodiest scenes this year in a spiraling drug war that killed 6,000 people last year, raising fears of a spillover into the United States.

"The army will continue to search this area where gangs are hiding until they are caught," Torres said.

Officials believe the hit men were working for Mexico's most-wanted man, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel who is trying to wrestle control of a smuggling corridor into Texas from the Juarez gang.

More than 2,000 people died last year in drug violence in Chihuahua state alone, the bloodiest flash point in the army-backed war against drug cartels launched by President Felipe Calderon's in late 2006. (Reporting by Julian Cardona in Ciudad Juarez and Robin Emmott in Monterrey; editing by Todd Eastham)

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