Gunmen killed nine women and children in the bloodiest attack on Americans in Mexico for years, prompting U.S. President Donald Trump to offer to help the neighboring country wipe out drug cartels believed to be behind the ambush.
All nine people, Mexican-Americans killed in Monday’s daytime attack at the border of Chihuahua and Sonora, belonged to the LeBaron family, members of a breakaway Mormon community that settled in northern Mexico’s hills and plains decades ago.
Mexican Security Minister Alfonso Durazo said the nine, traveling in several SUVs, may have been victims of mistaken identity, given the high number of violent confrontations among warring drug gangs in the area.
“The convoy made up of suburban vans could have been confused with criminal groups that fight for control in the region,” Durazo said at a news conference alongside Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
A video posted on social media showed the charred and smoking remains of a vehicle riddled with bullet holes that was apparently carrying the victims when the attack occurred.
“This is for the record,” says a male voice speaking English in an American accent, off camera, choking up with emotion.
“Nita and four of my grandchildren are burnt and shot up.”
Reuters could not independently verify the video.
A family relative, Julian LeBaron, called the incident a “massacre” and said some family members were burned alive.
In a text message to Reuters he wrote that four boys, two girls and three women were killed. Several children who fled the attack were lost for hours in the countryside before being found, he said.
He said it was unclear who carried out the attack.
“We don’t know why, though they had received indirect threats. We don’t know who did it,” he told Reuters.
“My cousin was murdered with her children in the truck,” said Alex LeBaron, another relative in one of the villages inhabited by the extended family. He said all the victims were U.S. citizens, and most also held dual citizenship with Mexico.
TIME TO ‘WAGE WAR’ -TRUMP
Under Trump, the United States and Mexico have often been at loggerheads over trade, the U.S. president’s anti-immigration rhetoric and his plans to build a wall on their common border.
But Trump has praised Lopez Obrador, his Mexican counterpart who took office 11 months ago, for helping to reduce the flow of Central American migrants to the United States.
Trump tweeted that he would await a call from Lopez Obrador, urging him to accept U.S. assistance.
Lopez Obrador said he would call Trump on Tuesday about ways to cooperate on security but rejected what he called any foreign government intervention.
“I’ll speak with President Trump to thank him for his support, and to see if in cooperation agreements there’s the possibility of getting help,” he told the news conference. “I don’t think we need the intervention of a foreign government to deal with these cases,” he added.
Trump wrote on Twitter: “The great new President of Mexico has made this a big issue, but the cartels have become so large and powerful that you sometimes need an army to defeat an army!”
“This is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth,” Trump added.
Mexico has used its military in a war on drug cartels since 2006 but despite the arrest or killing of leading traffickers the campaign has not succeeded in reducing drug violence. In fact, it has led to more killings as criminal groups fight among themselves.
The government has registered more than 250,000 homicides in the last dozen years, most of them related to the drug war.
Lopez Obrador has blasted the security strategy of previous Mexican governments, saying more than a decade of war against drug traffickers is officially over and he will seek alternative solutions.
“War is irrational. We believe in peace,” said Lopez Obrador, a leftist who took office last December.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI already work very closely with Mexico to combat the cartels.
In 2010, two members of the Chihuahua Mormon community, including one from the LeBaron family, were killed in apparent revenge after security forces tracked drug gang members. The Mormons had suffered widespread kidnappings before that.
Northwestern Mexico has been home to small Mormon and Mormon-linked communities with family ties to the United States since the late 19th century.
Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz; Additional reporting by Dave Graham, David Alire Garcia, Daina Beth Solomon and Sharay Angulo; Writing by Alistair Bell; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Howard Goller
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