GUAJALAJARA, Mexico (AFP) — Five police died and three were hurt in an overnight grenade and gun attack in Mexico's western Jalisco state, local police said on Thursday.
The officers were carrying out a "routine check of a suspect car when two other cars drove up, from where (the attackers) fired shots and threw two grenades," killing five, said a police officer from Lagos de Moreno.
The three survivors were seriously injured and transferred to local hospitals, he added.
More than 1,000 bullet shells lay at the gas station where the attack took place, he said, and television images showed the burnt-out shells of the police vehicles.
Three other police were killed in the town of 150,000 in August.
Some 57 died in suspected drug-related attacks in Jalisco state in August, according to a count by national newspaper El Universal.
Violent killings and decapitations have increased across the country this year, with almost 3,500 dead so far, according to local media.
A government crackdown on drug-related violence, initiated by President Felipe Calderon almost two years ago and including the deployment of 36,000 troops, has showed no sign of stopping the killings.
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