MEXICO CITY—Nine people, including four women, died after a mob burst into a bar and opened fire in Guanajuato, Mexico, officials said Thursday.
In Guanajuato, local gangs are in a turf war with the Jalisco cartel. What the attacks have in common is that the perpetrators tried to kill everyone in the bar, including the waitress.
In Wednesday night’s attack in the town of Apaseo El Alto, attackers left handwritten posters on the floor of a bloody bar. The message was signed by the Santa Rosa de Lima gang, whose now-imprisoned leader is known as “Maro” or Sledgehammer.
The message appeared to accuse the bar owner of supporting the rival Jalisco Cartel.
Photos from the scene showed several waitresses in miniskirts lying in pools of blood at a bar.
The Apaseo El Alto municipal government said two other women were injured in the attack but were in stable condition.
In October, another Guanajuato city bar was attacked, and six of the 10 were women. A similar attack on a bar in another town killed him 10 people in September.
Guanajuato-based security analyst David Saucedo said the attack targeted a specific bar. Bar owners may have refused to pay protection money or sold drugs from rival gangs, but they were indiscriminate once targets were selected.
“Some of the attacks were carried out to kill drug dealers, guards, or cartel members who were spending the night in bars,” Saucedo said. To kill, it becomes a massacre.”
There are signs that the conflict in Mexico’s most violent state, Guanajuato, has turned into a proxy war between Mexico’s two most powerful drug cartels.
The Sinaloa Cartel now appears to be assisting gangs in Santa Rosa de Lima in their fight against Jalisco.
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