Gunmen kill 10 in central Mexico bar attack

MEXICO CITY:

Gunmen burst into a bar in central Mexico and opened fire, killing 10 people and sowing panic in an area that had been spared the worst of the country's raging criminal violence.

Security camera footage showed several armed men pulling up in a truck and spraying bullets inside the venue as terrified customers fled or dived to the floor.

The attack late Saturday on Los Cantaritos bar in Queretaro's downtown district left 10 people dead and 13 injured, two of them critically, according to state governor Mauricio Kuri.

One suspect was detained and the vehicle used in the attack was found abandoned and set on fire, the city's public security department chief Juan Luis Ferrusca said.

The dead included three women, according to the Queretaro state prosecutor's office, which said forensic experts were examining the scene of the attack and the truck.

Queretaro, the capital of Queretaro state, is considered one of the safer cities in Mexico, which has been plagued by years of drug cartel-related violence.

"We cannot allow this," Kuri said in a video posted on social media.

"In Queretaro, we will continue to defend our quality of life," he said, adding: "We will not allow ourselves to be contaminated by what's happening in other parts of the republic."

Queretaro, a city known more for its colonial architecture than for its crime, is around 200 kilometers (120 miles) northwest of Mexico City.

For more than a year there has been a gradual increase in the number of murders in Queretaro, where several criminal groups operate, according to security expert David Saucedo.

He said Saturday's attack was similar to a pattern of violence in neighboring Guanajuato -- Mexico's most violent state, according to official homicide statistics.

There had been "attacks on bars and restaurants either to collect protection money or because these spaces sell drugs from a rival group," Saucedo told broadcaster Grupo Formula.

Across Mexico, spiraling violence, much of it linked to drug trafficking and gangs, has seen more than 450,000 people murdered since 2006.

Tackling the murders and kidnappings that are a daily occurrence is among the major challenges facing President Claudia Sheinbaum.

The former Mexico City mayor, who became the country's first woman president on October 1, has ruled out declaring "war" on drug cartels.

Instead she has pledged to continue her predecessor's strategy of using social policy to tackle crime at its roots, while also making better use of intelligence.

The northwestern cartel stronghold of Sinaloa has seen a surge in violence since the July arrest of drug lord Ismael Zambada in the United States unleashed a wave of gang infighting.

There has also been a spike in bloodshed in the southern state of Guerrero, the scene of long-running gang turf wars.