CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico, Oct 1, 2008 (AFP) - Police found a headless body and the head of another person, as well as nine other bodies in the north of the country Wednesday in the latest spate of gruesome killings in Mexico.

The decapitated body of a man in his thirties lay alongside its head in an abandoned house in the center of the volatile city of Ciudad Juarez, bordering the United States, said Alejandro Pariente, spokesman for Chihuahua State authorities.

Two dogs were found playing with the head of another person in the municipality of Casas Grandes in the same state, forensic services said.

The bodies of six other men and one women were found in other areas of the northern state Wednesday, authorities said.

Further west along the border, the bodies of two men were found hanging from a bridge in the border city of Tijuana, state officials said.

'We suspect the bodies were hung up by people involved in organized crime,' Baja California state official Salvador Ortiz Morales told AFP.

Violence has escalated across Mexico this year, with more than 3,000 murders according to Mexican journalists, amid a government crackdown on drug-related crime including the deployment of 36,000 troops.

Border areas where rival drug cartels are battling for control of key routes into the United States are among the worst hit.

Ciudad Juarez registered 107 murders in September alone and more than 1,000 this year.

Violence rose again this week in Tijuana, where 21 bodies were found in the past two days.