http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080215/wl_ ... co_bomb_dc

Bomb kills one and wounds two in Mexico City
By Armando Tovar and Cyntia Barrera Diaz 2 hours, 40 minutes ago


MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A bomb exploded on a street in central Mexico City near the security ministry on Friday, killing one person and wounding two.
No group claimed responsibility for the blast and there was no warning. The Mexican government is locked in a violent battle with drug gangs and has yet to catch left-wing rebels who planted small bombs at oil installations last year.

Police were checking phone warnings that came in after the blast of other possible explosives left in nearby streets, Mexico City police chief Joel Ortega told Reuters.

Hundreds of officers in riot gear blocked roads around the bomb site and evacuated nearby buildings as police helicopters hovered overhead. Windows of buildings and parked cars were blown out and a large advertising awning was destroyed.

"We still have no message nor do we have the identity of these people," Ortega said of the perpetrators. "We are being cautious with the analysis of the materials we found. It is probably gunpowder."

Ortega said the dead man had severe abdominal wounds and his hand was blown off, suggesting he may have been carrying the device when it went off.

A woman was severely burned and a young man wounded in the blast near the ministry building, a couple of blocks from the capital's busy Reforma boulevard and near the bustling Zona Rosa district that is popular with tourists.

"We don't know if it was in one of their hands or whether they moved something," Ortega told Mexican radio.

Ortega said it was unclear whether the device was left in a car or on the street. Another city police official on the ground said the blast could have been caused by a grenade.

"I was working here one block down when I heard a really strong blast that shook everything," said Alfredo, a young man cleaning car windshields on a street corner.

Bomb squads were checking other cars in the street.

President Felipe Calderon has deployed the army in a year-old battle with Mexico's powerful drug cartels. Police have made several arrests in the capital and seized suspected gang members found with large arsenals of guns and grenades.

Mexico is not home to any major terrorist groups but it was hit last year by a series of bomb attacks by a small left-wing guerrilla group on oil installations that caused no deaths.

The Marxist-inspired Popular Revolutionary Army, or EPR, had lain dormant for several years until it reemerged last year, badly hurting Mexican industry with two sets of bomb attacks on natural gas and fuel pipelines.

(Additional reporting by Anahi Rama, Miguel Angel Gutierrez, Chris Aspin and Carlos Pacheco; Writing by Catherine Bremer; Editing by John O'Callaghan)