Mexicali.- Municipal police arrested Monday night two men who picked up two suitcases tossed over the border fence from the U.S. side containing nearly 200 grenades and parts of weapons, according to news reports.

Gen. Alfonso Duarte, the commander of Mexico's Second Military Region, and Mexicali's police chief, Alejandro Monreal, announced Tuesday that the men were captured at the border during a patrol.

The police chief said the arrests occurred near border crossing post No. 2 in Mexicali, "when the men were seen picking up the suitcases that had been thrown over the fence from the United States," according to reports from the news agencies EFE and Notimex.

He said two men, when they discovered they had been spotted, tried to escape.

The news reports said that the two military-style suitcases contained 194 grenades of various types, 192 fuses and three boxes with parts for different types of weapons, including the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle.

The police chief said that it was believed the grenades were similar to the one used in the Feb. 12 attack in Guadalajara, where gunmen hurled a grenade in a nightclub killing six and injuring more than 30.