A drug cartel set off a coordinated series of seven roadway bombs in western Mexico that killed four police officers and two civilians, officials said Wednesday. The governor of Jalisco state said the explosions were “a trap” set by the cartel to kill law enforcement personnel.
Luis Méndez, the chief prosecutor of Jalisco state, said the blasts late Tuesday in the township of Tlajomulco were so powerful they left craters in the road, destroyed at least four vehicles and wounded 14 other people.
It appeared to be the first time that a Mexican cartel killed law enforcement personnel with improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, and was the latest example of the increasingly open, military-style challenge posed by the country’s drug cartels.
Méndez said the two dead civilians were in a vehicle that happened to be passing the spot when the IEDs detonated in Tlajomulco, near the state capital of Guadalajara. He suggested the bombs may have been remotely detonated, saying the blast “happened at the moment they wanted.”
He said 12 of the wounded were also civilians, including three children ages 9, 13 and 14. He said some of the wounded were in serious condition. Experts had to defuse an eighth IED that did not detonate, and warned the area was still dangerous, Méndez said.
Enrique Alfaro, the governor of Jalisco state, said an anonymous caller who gave a volunteer search group a tip about a clandestine burial site near the roadway set “a trap” for the officers.
For years, police have been unable to locate the more than 110,000 missing people in Mexico, but they accompany volunteer search groups that look for such hidden graves. The volunteers, usually the mothers of missing people, often get anonymous tips about where their relatives may be buried.
Jalisco Gov. Enrique Alfaro said a total of eight “improvised explosive devices” were planted on the roadway.
“This is a brutal terror attack,” Alfaro said at a news conference Wednesday, blaming the deaths on an unnamed drug cartel. He said he was temporarily suspending police escorts for volunteer searches for the safety of the civilians.
