President Andrés Manuel López Obrador this morning condemned the attack suffered by personnel from the Jalisco Prosecutor’s Office and Tlajomulco Municipal Police on July 11, which so far left six dead and a dozen injured, and pointed out that “it was an ambush.” .
Por Mark Stevenson
MEXICO CITY (AP).— eight explosive devices placed on the side of a road by a drug cartelaccording to authorities, they killed six peoplefour officials and two civilians, and injured 14 officers and civiliansincluding three minors, in the most recent example of the military type challenge increasingly shameless that represent the criminal organizations in Mexico.
He Governor from the western state of Jalisco, Enrique Alfarosaid that the attack it happened on tuesday night Tlajomulcoa suburb of Guadalajara, the state capital. “In a fact that we had not seen before here,” he said Wednesday. Alfarowhich described the attack as a “brutal act of terror” and attributed it to a sign whom he did not identify.
During a press conference, the Governor reported that eight improvised devices were used in the event, seven of which exploded. The attack originated from an anonymous complaint about the presence of human remains in the vicinity of Tlajomulco, which prompted the exit to the land of those who were later affected by the explosives.
This is an important message for the people of Jalisco. pic.twitter.com/hx9aXInrd2
— Enrique Alfaro (@EnriqueAlfaroR) July 12, 2023
Following the incident, the suspension of search operations for missing persons in the state was ordered, where activists have denounced the existence of numerous clandestine graves.
Alfaro said that the authorities went to the place, but “it was a trap for our elements. What happened is that this call sought the presence of our police to be able to attack them with these devices.”
“We are not going to bend, nor are we going to give up,” said the Governor on a visit to Tlajomulco, in which he attributed the attack to “all the actions we have taken to tell criminals that they are not going to continue acting freely and without consequences.
The Attorney General of Jalisco, Luis Méndez, told the press that among the deceased there are three elements of the Prosecutor’s Office, a municipal police officer and two civilians and that the number of injured rose to 14, some of them in delicate condition. Three official vehicles and one civilian were also damaged in the explosion.
Tonight, staff from the @FiscaliaJal and Tlajomulco Police suffered a cowardly attack with explosive devices, which preliminarily caused the death of three colleagues from the municipal police and the Prosecutor’s Office, as well as injured 10 people.
It is a fact without…
— Enrique Alfaro (@EnriqueAlfaroR) July 12, 2023
The collective of Searching Mothers of Jalisco, made up of relatives of disappeared persons, denied any connection to the attack and indicated in a statement that “we never received that call and we never went out into the fields at night (to search).”
The group attributed Alfaro’s comments to a strategy to “intimidate” the activists and ruled out having received any kind of threat or intimidation from cartels. “If you think we are in danger… give us the protection we deserve for doing your job,” the letter states.
Likewise, the group recalled that they recently found a grave with numerous human remains in the town of San Juan Evangelista, municipality of Tlajomulco, which is still under investigation by the Jalisco Prosecutor’s Office.
These are apparently the first deaths of police officers caused by an improvised explosive device in Mexico. Similar devices injured 10 soldiers in the neighboring state of Michoacán in 2022 and killed one civilian.
Alfaro did not identify the object of his suspicions, but the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel has considerable experience in the use of improvised explosives and bomb-throwing drones.
Earlier on Tuesday, a federal official said another cartel had killed a National Guard officer in the state of Guanajuato in a car bomb.
On Monday, in the state of Guerrero, protesters allied with another gang clashed with security forces, seized an armored police truck and used it to break down the gates of the state legislature.
The area around Guadalajara has been the scene of bloody battles between factions of the Jalisco cartel, to which previous bombing attacks in Mexico have been blamed.
In February 2022, in the Michoacán municipality of Aguililla, a mine placed on a road damaged a military vehicle and injured 10 soldiers. It was the first known case of an attack with an explosive device on a military target in Mexico.
Days later, another device killed a farmer who ran over it in his truck. The farmer’s son was injured by the explosion of the device, which apparently contained ammonium nitrate.
Special army units equipped with metal detectors and protective clothing later scoured the area and found dozens of artifacts on rural roads and fields around Aguililla.
Some were detonated by radio or telephone signal, by pressure -by being stepped on- or by vials that when broken allowed the combination of two substances.
The Jalisco cartel has been fighting with the local gang Viagras, also called Cárteles Unidos, for control of the area for years. Trenches, machine gun emplacements, homemade armored vehicles and drones modified to drop small bombs have appeared in those battles.
These drones have caused more terror in Michoacán than the mines. Although crude and dangerous to make and handle, they have perfected their use and it is not unusual to see barn roofs or warehouses split open like cans by the impact of such bombs.
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