Five police were killed and three hurt in an overnight grenade attack in Mexico's western Jalisco state, while 13 others died in attacks elsewhere in the country, officials said Thursday.
The deaths included six in the southern Oaxaca State, relatively untouched by suspected drug-related violence in which almost 3,500 have died so far this year.
The Jalisco police officers were carrying out a "routine check of a suspect car when two other cars drove up, from where (the attackers) fired shots and threw two grenades," killing five, said a police officer from Lagos de Moreno.
The three survivors were seriously injured and transferred to local hospitals, and more than 1,000 bullet shells lay at the gas station where the attack took place, he said.
Suspected drug gang members shot dead five men in Oaxaca late Wednesday, including two in the seaside resort of Puerto Escondido, state officials said Thursday.
Police found the burned remains of another person some 70 kilometers (40 miles) from Oaxaca city.
Meanwhile in the northern state of Chihuahua, Mexico's most violent, seven died, including a municipal official and a woman, and eight others were kidnapped in a small town bordering the United States, the attorney general's office said.
A government crackdown on drug-related violence, initiated by President Felipe Calderon almost two years ago and including the deployment of 36,000 troops, has showed no sign of stopping the killings.
Copyright 2008  AFP Global Edition
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