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Assailants lob grenades, attack police chief and prison director in violence outbreak in Mexico


ASSOCIATED PRESS

11:26 a.m. February 11, 2006

ZIHUATANEJO, Mexico – Assailants lobbed a grenade at a hotel and a prison director and police chief barely survived separate attempts on their lives in an outbreak of violence in several parts of Mexico early Saturday.
The grenade attack happened in the resort city of Zihuatanejo, 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of Acapulco. The weapon exploded about 4 a.m. local time (1000 GMT) in the parking lot of the Hotel Posada Colonial, shattering windows and injuring a person who was hit in the leg by a fragment of the weapon, Preventive Police official Miguel Garcia said.

The incident marked the third grenade attack in less than a week on Mexico's Pacific coast. On Friday, grenades were thrown at a police station and the office of local prosecutors in Acapulco, slightly injuring one police officer. On Tuesday, assailants tossed two hand grenades at the home of Zihuatanejo's police chief, injuring a policeman who was guarding the home. No one has been detained in any of the attacks.

In the northern state of Coahuila before dawn Saturday, state Police Chief Gaspar Ramos was shot in the neck and the stomach while eating tacos at an all-night restaurant, Mexican news media reported.

Ramos was in serious condition at a hospital, and police were searching for his attacker, identified as the son of a local nightclub owner who had been arguing with Ramos at the restaurant. A waiter was hit by a bullet in the leg during the shooting. Ramos was suspended from his post pending the outcome of an investigation into the attack.

Shortly after midnight Friday, assailants threw an explosive device, possibly a grenade, at a truck being driven by Luis Fernando Mendoza, security director of the La Palma maximum-security prison, while he was driving on a highway in Mexico State, in central Mexico, Mexican news media reported.

Mendoza escaped with minor injuries. The perpetrators were still at large. La Palma, located outside Mexico City, houses some of the country's most dangerous criminals, including major drug traffickers.