Gunmen kill 10 people at pool hall in central Mexico
Armed attackers killed 10 people in a pool hall in an industrial region of central Mexico plagued by drug cartel-related violence, authorities said Thursday. The massacre happened on Wednesday night in the municipality of Tarimoro in Guanajuato state, according to the regional prosecutor's office.
The bodies of nine men were found at the scene and another man died in hospital, it said.
The governor of Guanajuato, Diego Sinhue Rodriguez, condemned what he called a "cowardly attack" and vowed to restore order.
Guanajuato has become one of Mexico's most violent states due to a dispute between the Santa Rosa de Lima and Jalisco New Generation cartels, which fight for control of trafficking in drugs and stolen fuel.
The Department of Justice considers the Jalisco cartel to be "one of the five most dangerous transnational criminal organizations in the world." The cartel's leader, Nemesio Oseguera, "El Mencho," is among the most sought by Mexican and U.S. authorities.
The head of the Drug Enforcement Administration told CBS News last week that the Jalisco cartel is one of the Mexican cartels that are behind the influx of fentanyl in the U.S. that's killing tens of thousands of Americans.
"Those cartels are acting with calculated, deliberate treachery to get fentanyl to the United States and to get people to buy it through fake pills, by hiding it in other drugs, any means that they can take in order to drive addiction and to make money," DEA Administrator Anne Milgram told "CBS Mornings."
Since December 2006, when the government launched a controversial military anti-drug operation, Mexico has recorded more than 340,000 murders, according to official figures.
Authorities have blamed most of the killings on organized crime.