6 Police die in ambush in western Mexico

Mexico City, Jul 12 (EFE).- A bomb attack on law enforcement officers in the western Mexican state of Jalisco resulted in six fatalities, authorities said Wednesday.

The assault left “a toll of six dead and 12 wounded, including state police and elements of the municipal police in Tlajomulco de Zuñiga,” Jalisco Gov. Enrique Alfaro Ramirez said.

Authorities have organized a search for the attackers, he said from Tlajomulco, about 33 km (21 mi) from Guadalajara, the state capital.

Alfaro described the attack as ambush.

Investigators working for the state Attorney General’s Office and local police traveling in a pick-up truck ventured down a dirt road after an anonymous telephone call about a clandestine grave, the governor said.

The call was received by a “searcher mother,” as women who have organized to look for missing loved ones are known, who relayed the information to police.

The attackers use eight improvised explosive devices (IEDs), one of which failed to detonate.

“It is a deed that we have not seen before here,” Alfaro said. Blaming the “brutal act of terror” on an unnamed criminal organization.

The state has suffered from the violence of various criminal outfits such as the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

Figures released Tuesday by Mexico’s federal public safety department showing that six of the country’s 32 states – Guanajuato, Mexico, Baja California, Jalisco, Chihuahua, and Michoacan – accounted for 7,226 homicides in the first six months of this year, or nearly half of the total nationwide.

EFE jmrg-csr/dr