Shots fired near US consulate in northern Mexico

1:30 p.m. November 13, 2008

MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) - Shots were fired near a U.S. consulate in northern Mexico Thursday, the third incident at the building in a month, and officials briefly suspended visa services, police and witnesses said.

Mexican police swarmed around the consulate building in the city of Monterrey after shots were heard and a bullet hit a nearby fruit vendor's cart, a police spokesman said.

Unknown gunmen shot at the building in October and threw a grenade that did not explode. In another incident last month, gunmen also fired shots near the building.

No one at the consulate, which processes immigrant visas for Mexicans and provides services to U.S. citizens in Mexico, was immediately available for comment.

Monterrey, a manufacturing and services city close to the U.S. border, saw a surge in violence involving drug gangs in 2007 but has been calm this year despite spiraling turf wars between drug cartels across Mexico in which some 4,300 people have died in 2008.

(Reporting by Robin Emmott, editing by Vicki Allen)

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