MEXICO CITY – Army soldiers rescued four kidnap victims, including three minors, in the central Mexican state of Morelos and arrested 14 suspected members of a criminal gang, officials said.

Responding to an anonymous tip, the troops found 18 people Wednesday at a residence in Temixco, a Morelos town near the state capital of Cuernavaca.

In a statement, the Defense Secretariat did not identify the people who were freed or the 14 purported gang members, although it said one of the suspects goes by the alias “El Bambucha.”

The soldiers also confiscated 15 kilos (33 pounds) of marijuana, a half kilo of cocaine, four firearms, a grenade, ammunition and six vehicles that had been reported stolen, the statement said.

The detainees are suspected of belonging to a criminal cell dedicated to drug trafficking, kidnapping, vehicle theft, racketeering and homicide, the Morelos state Attorney General’s Office said in a separate statement.

The three rescued minors will receive psychological support from Morelos’ System for Integral Family Development, or DIF.

The troops also found the remains of a decapitated man identified as Eduardo Gonzalez Mora at the same residence, state authorities said.

The man’s head had been found Monday inside a motorcycle helmet in Xochitepec, another town near Cuernavaca, along with a message signed by the little-known Los Rojos gang that warned others close to the victim they would suffer the same fate.

Temixco has been the scene of numerous violent incidents in recent months, the latest of which occurred Monday, when seven suspected cartel gunmen were killed in a pre-dawn clash with Mexican federal police near Cuernavaca.

That same day, assailants gunned down the police chief of the Morelos municipality of Zacatepec in an attack at a gas station outside another town.

Morelos, which borders the Federal District (Mexico City), has witnessed bloody battles among rival drug cartels and between the gangs and the security forces.

Mexico’s government said last week that 12,903 people were killed in drug-related violence between January and September 2011, up 11 percent from the same period of 2010 and bringing the drug war death toll since December 2006 to 47,515.

The country’s murder total has grown every year of President Felipe Calderon’s military offensive against the well-funded, heavily armed drug gangs.

Unofficial tallies published last month by independent daily La Jornada put the drug-war death toll at more than 50,000. EFE