Five Dead in Two Attacks in Northern Mexico
May 7, 2011

MONTERREY, Mexico – Two attacks by suspected members of the Los Zetas drug cartel on Mexican army soldiers and civilians in this northern industrial metropolis left at least five people dead and six wounded, officials said.

In the first attack, a group of armed men aboard eight SUVs fired at a military patrol and two state police units, a source with the federal Attorney General’s Office said.

The soldiers were drawn into an ambush after coming under fire from gunmen in one vehicle. Upon pursuing those initial assailants, the soldiers and police reached a highway where they became surrounded by other attackers in seven SUVs, the source said.

The Defense Secretariat said that attack occurred Friday on the Monterrey-Saltillo highway near the town of Escopedo, in the northern part of the Monterrey metropolitan area.

The assailants fired “with a grenade launcher, hitting a bus,â€