10 killed in Mexico bar shooting in state ravaged by violence

A police official said it appears as it was a direct attack

MEXICO CITY:

Unidentified gunmen opened fire in a bar in central Mexico, killing 10 people, officials said, in the latest outbreak of violence to buffet the country.

"It appears it was a direct attack," said a police official from the town of Tarimoro in the state of Guanajuato, which has been convulsed in recent years by vicious turf wars between rival drug gangs.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said all ten victims in Wednesday's attack were male, and that no arrests had been made yet.

 A state government official said nine of the men were killed at the scene, while another died of his wounds after being taken to hospital.

Calling the shooting a "cowardly attack", Guanajuato's governor Diego Sinhue Rodriguez on Twitter expressed his condolences to the families of the victims.

He did not provide details of the attack.

The federal security ministry said this week that Guanajuato has seen the most murders this year among Mexican states, recording 2,115 victims between January and August.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told a news conference on Thursday morning that 20 homicides had been registered across Guanajuato on Wednesday.