Mexican vigilantes occupy another city in Michoacan MEXICO CITY - Tensions continued to rise over the weekend in the Mexican state of Michoacan, where vigilante "self-help" groups reportedly rode into the latest of a string of cities that they have occupied in recent days - part of their effort to wrest control of a region known as the Tierra Caliente from the vicious Knights Templar drug cartel. The incursion Sunday occurred amid a series of roadblocks, shootouts and attacks on government and private property that have prompted a Michoacan congressman, Silvano Aureoles, to call on the federal government to seize control of the situation or face a potential "civil war" in the region. Dozens of pickup trucks carrying armed vigilante members rolled into Nueva Italia, a city of about 32,000 people, according to media reports. There were some unconfirmed reports of minor skirmishes, presumably with drug cartel members or their supporters. Nueva Italia is about a half-hour drive east of the city of Apatzingan, a key Knights Templar stronghold. With more than 90,000 residents, Apatzingan is also the largest city in the Tierra Caliente, or hot land, an important agricultural region about six hours' drive west of Mexico City. The vigilantes rose up in the region a few months ago, angered by cartel members' widespread abuse of residents, including extortion, killing and the rape of young women. But the narrative of the vigilantes as heroes is complicated by concerns that some of them may be fronts for rival drug gangs. Some residents of the area also hold the Knights Templar in high regard, even going so far as to worship their founder as a kind of modern-day saint. With the incursion into Nueva Italia, along with a number of smaller communities last week, the vigilantes now control much of the area surrounding Apatzingan and may be preparing for a major assault there. Some trouble has already reached the city. On Friday, as the presence of the vigilante groups continued to build in the towns just outside the city's borders, groups of armed, masked men of unknown allegiance looted and set fire to a number of convenience stores in Apatzingan and also set ablaze its main municipal building, according to media reports and Michoacan officials. The mayor of Apatzingan told the newspaper Reforma that 35% of the building was damaged after being attacked with homemade bombs. The paper reported a tense calm in Apatzingan on Saturday, with many stores closed. For much of the last week, residents in and around the city have blocked major thoroughfares, sometimes with burning cars, which has shut much of the area off from the wider world. Bus routes have been canceled, and gas trucks are apparently refusing to go to Apatzingan to refill tanks at service stations. "The people are very worried, there's already a gas shortage ... as well as a number of basic products because there's no way in, there's nothing, everything's blocked off," the mayor, Uriel Chavez Mendoza, told Reforma. Mexican military and federal police have been deployed to the area, and cleared a number of roadblocks this weekend. A number of news outlets reported that the vigilantes' incursion into Nueva Italia occurred under the noses of federal troops, who did little more than observe. In some cases, the vigilantes have been operating with the de facto approval of federal authorities, sometimes manning checkpoints alongside federal security forces. "The federal government, in coordination with the local [government], needs to take charge of the security in the conflict zones of Michoacan," said Aureoles, the congressman, in a prepared statement reported Sunday by the federal legislature's official news service.