MEXICO CITY, June 26 (Reuters) - A daylight shootout between suspected drug gang hitmen and security forces killed at least 12 people in a small town in central Mexico on Friday, Mexican media said.

Hitmen opened fire on police and soldiers and threw grenades after officers tried to arrest them in Apaseo el Alto in normally tranquil Guanajuato state, reports said. The local attorney general's office could not immediately confirm the reports.

Rival gangs have taken their fight over Mexico's $40 billion-a-year drug trade inland from the U.S. border region as they battle for cocaine smuggling routes running up from Central America into the United States.

President Felipe Calderon has sent thousands of troops across Mexico to try and rein in the cartel turf wars, but violence has surged and killed 12,300 people since he took office in December 2006. (Reporting by Robin Emmott; Editing by Bill Trott)

AlertNet news is provided by