Bomb attack in Mexico: Three police officers killed and ten injured

An “unprecedented” bomb attack killed three representatives of Mexico’s police and judiciary and wounded ten others Tuesday evening in western Mexico, the governor of Jalisco state announced.

Employees of the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Jalisco Police “were the victims of a cowardly attack with explosive devices that resulted in the death of three colleagues from the Municipal Police and the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the wounding of 10,” Governor Enrique Alfaro wrote on Twitter.

“This is an unprecedented fact that highlights what these organized crime groups are capable of. This attack is a challenge for the entire Mexican government,” said a senior official in the state of one of the country’s most powerful drug trafficking organizations, the Jalisco Cartel – New Generation (CJNG).

The governor said his cabinet is in “permanent session” to investigate the attack, which has yet to prompt any movement.

The first reports of the attack came shortly after 8pm (0200 GMT Wednesday) in Tlajomulco de Zuñiga, a suburb of Guadalajara city, when a vehicle with five people was on fire, local officials said.

According to local channel Televisa, the explosion occurred very close to a vehicle carrying security guards.

Several ambulances rushed to the scene to treat the victims, as well as forensic personnel to examine the circumstances of the attack.

Base of CJNG operations

According to police sources, authorities are specifically trying to determine whether it was a grenade attack or an artisanal mine, which the CJNG has used in other Mexican states such as Michoacán (West).

The Jalisco Cartel – the base state of operation of the new generation, but the latter occupies a large part of the national territory.

Bomb attacks are relatively rare and recent in Mexico, where 30,000 murders were recorded in 2022.

However, officials said a drone attack on a house in Apatzingan, Michoacán state, injured one person last Sunday.

In June, a car bomb exploded in the state of Guanajuato, killing a National Guard agent and wounding three others.

Authorities were challenged Monday and Tuesday in Guerrero state, where 10 members of the security forces and three civil servants were held hostage by protesters.

The 13 hostages were freed Tuesday after negotiations between the federal government and demonstrators, who broke down the door of Guerrero’s governor’s palace with an armored police vehicle and blocked a highway.

Mexico has led an estimated 350,000 murders and tens of thousands of disappearances since 2006 and has launched a military crackdown on organized crime.