Jalisco Governor Enrique Alfaro has accused drug cartels of planting bombs as a ‘trap’ for the police.
Mexican authorities have announced that a series of roadside bombs in the western state of Jalisco have killed six security officials and wounded 12 others, a sign that the country is grappling with security forces and powerful gangs.
Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, the Governor of Jalisco, Enrique Alfaro, called the night explosion “an act of barbarism”. He said the operation was carried out by an unidentified drug trafficking group.
“This is an unprecedented event that shows what drug teams can do,” Alfaro previously wrote. social media. “This attack also represents a major challenge for the Mexican government at all levels.”
Alfaro said the threat came after an anonymous caller tipped off a volunteer group helping to find the bodies. people disappeared that there was a cemetery hidden by the road in Tlajomulco, near the capital of Jalisco in Guadalajara.
Eight explosive devices (IEDs) were planted on the road, seven of which were detonated as a police convoy was passing by.
“It was a trap,” Alfaro said, adding that he was temporarily suspending police escorts for volunteer search teams.
The people who were killed in the attack are police officers and prosecutors. No members of the volunteer group appear to have been killed.
The incident is the latest to highlight the challenges that gangs pose to security in Mexico, where they operate great power.
The government responsible for Tuesday night’s blast is the Jalisco New Generation drug-trafficking group, a powerful group that often clashes with other gangs.
The Jalisco group has been accused of carrying out previous attacks using IEDs and bomb-carrying drones, evidence of the technology and lethal intelligence of such groups.
In 2022, IEDs injured 10 soldiers and killed a civilian in neighboring Michoacan, and another is suspected. car bomb wounded several members of the National Guard in the state of Guanajuato last month.
More than 110,000 people are missing in Mexico, a country where both government power and terrorist groups have a long history of expelling people and violating their rights.
State police sometimes get busy with the gangs they are tasked with fighting. For example, in February, a former head of state security was found guilty accepting bribes from drug cartels.
Tuesday’s attack is a challenge for volunteer groups trying to find missing. Many of the volunteers are often mothers and relatives of the missing, and their groups sometimes rely on anonymous tips to find hidden burial sites.
Six volunteers have been killed in Mexico since 2021.