5 police officers shot dead in cartel-plagued part of Mexico as World Cup kicks off

Five Mexican police officers were shot dead and five others wounded Wednesday in violence-hit Michoacan state on the eve of the World Cup opener in Mexico City, local authorities said.

The officers were attacked by unknown assailants in an Indigenous region of the western state, which is plagued by cartel violence, the state government reported.

The pickup truck they were traveling in was riddled with bullet holes, according to images obtained by AFP.

In a social media post, the Moriela Police Department identified the slain officers as Porfirio Rodriguez Briseno, Brandon Josue Zamora Torres, Francisco Javier Otero Damas, Jonatan Mondragon Servin and  Mateo Valdez Abarca.

Jose Pablo Alarcon Olemdo, the city’s former police chief, extended his condolences the victims’ families and friends.

“The criminals responsible for this attack must be arrested and punished with the full weight of the law,” he wrote on social media.

The attack took place in the municipality of Nahuatzen, a region inhabited by the Purepecha people where the powerful New Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) operates.

In May, the brazen murder of a small-city mayor, allegedly by the CJNG, prompted angry protests targeting symbols of the state, which many residents accused of failing to combat spiraling violence.

Michoacan’s capital Morelia is situated around 300 kilometers from both Mexico City and fellow World Cup host city Guadalajara.

The state’s security department said police were searching for the perpetrators of Wednesday’s attack.

Mexico’s government insists that there is no security threat to visiting World Cup fans.

Mexico is co-hosting the tournament with Canada and the United States. The U.S. Embassy said this week that because safety risks in Mexico can “vary greatly by region,” each Mexican state has been given its own travel advisory by the U.S. State Department.

In late April,  the Mexican military captured one of the CJNG’s top leaders in the northwest of the country, two months after the cartel’s leader was killed. Audias Flores Silva, also known as “El Jardinero,” or The Gardener, was seen as a possible successor to the killed leader and the United States had a $5 million reward out for information leading to his arrest.

Flores Silva was seen as a possible successor to Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, or “El Mencho,” who was killed in a dramatic military operation in February. The killing of “El Mencho” led to a surge of cartel violence with a wave of attacks on businesses by cartel gunmen, vehicle burnings and road blockades that killed more than 70 people, including 25 National Guard members.