Is drug cartel violence in Mexico reaching another level? At least six people were killed and a dozen others wounded in the “unprecedented” attack with explosives against security forces last Tuesday near Guadalajara (west).

It was something “we have never seen before here”, said yesterday Wednesday the governor of the state of Jalisco, Enrique Alfaro, who nevertheless governs one of the regions of the country most affected by the wave of violence sweeping it (1,095 murders, 750 disappearances current year only).

The governor denounced the “barbaric act of terrorism” which he says is “a challenge for the Mexican state as a whole”.

In a country accustomed to extreme violence (some 30,000 homicides in 2022), bomb attacks are a comparatively rare and recent phenomenon.

Governor Alfaro blamed “organized crime,” without naming the New Generation of Jalisco cartel (KNGH), which is considered one of the two most powerful gangs in the country, along with the Sinaloa cartel.

Among the victims are three police officers, the governor clarified. Two civilians were also killed in the attack, according to a prosecutor’s representative cited by Milenio newspaper.

The attackers used no less than “seven” improvised explosive devices, the governor said, clarifying that the target was “personnel from the state prosecutor’s office (Jalisco) and the police of the municipality of Tlachomulco.”

In this particular community, near Guadalajara, around 200 bodies have been found in secret mass graves. These are people who fell victim to the war between the cartels.

Notably, the security forces targeted in Tuesday’s attack were on their way to a site where a mass grave might be located, following a tip-off about an anonymous phone call to a representative of a collective of citizens looking for missing relatives.

Explosions occurred near a vehicle carrying police officers, according to the information of the private television network Televisa.

It was a “trap” against “our policemen”, according to the governor.

“We never received that call,” Indira Navarro, coordinator of the Madres Buscadoras (“Mother Searchers”) organization in Jalisco, told the press.

The state has the highest number of disappearances in all of Mexico, about 15,000 since 1962, out of a total of 111,203 across the territory, according to official data.

“narco-terrorism”

In June, a member of the National Guard was killed and others were injured in a car bomb explosion in the state of Guanajuato.

On Sunday, in the neighboring state of Michoacán, one person was injured in an attack with explosives dropped by a UAV on the village of Apatsingan.

The purpose of this kind of actions is probably to “weaken the striking power of the rival cartels, as well as the security forces, and to terrorize the population,” summarized security adviser David Saucedo, who told AFP about ” narco-terrorism”.

Another challenge to Mexican state authority: On Monday and Tuesday, in the state of Guerrero, 10 police officers and three other public officials were held hostage by protesters who were infiltrated by organized crime gang members, authorities said.

They were released yesterday, Tuesday, after negotiations between the federal authorities and the protesters, who had earlier destroyed the gate of the Guerrero governor’s palace with an armored police vehicle and had blocked a road.

There have been some 350,000 recorded murders and tens of thousands of reported disappearances in Mexico, crimes that the country’s authorities attribute mostly to gangs, since the so-called “war on drugs” began, the controversial operation to crack down on cartels with the deployment of the military inside the country in December 2006.

The KNFG was accused of shooting down a helicopter with a rocket launcher in 2015 in Jalisco state, when six people were killed.

The head of the KNX, Nemecio Oseguera, or “El Menzo”, is wanted by US authorities, who are offering a $10 million reward for information leading to his capture.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has been criticized for saying he is seeking “reconciliation” with gang members while, across the border, prominent US Republicans are demanding the cartels be designated as “terrorist” organizations.

“Peace is the fruit of justice, not coercive measures,” repeated yesterday Mr. López Obrador, who had summed up the policy he wanted to implement with the phrase “abrazos, no balazos” (“hugs, not rifles”).