Gunmen attack kills 7, injures 5 in south Mexico
Seven people, including two police officers, have lost their lives after gunmen opened fire on a police convoy in the southern Mexican state of Michoacan.
Five other police officers were injured and another went missing in the Tuesday clashes on the suburbs of the city of Apatzingan, the state prosecutor's office said in a statement.
Police officers were guarding a truck and a pick-up heading to Apatzingan as they came under a sudden hail of bullets and grenades by dozens of attackers.
Security forces "faced a group of people who fired their weapons in an aggression that was repelled," the statement noted.
According to prosecutors, the unidentified assailants returned hours later to set fire to two police vehicles and the truck, in which the charred bodies of two civilians were found.
Police forces and army soldiers were looking for the missing officer. There were no immediate arrests.
Apatzingan is a former stronghold of the Knights Templar, a drug cartel that terrorized Michoacan for years until farmers formed self-defense militias in 2013.
The Mexican government initiated a special operation in late 2006 to combat the cartel, resulting in the capture of its top leaders.
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