US closes consulate in violence-hit Mexican border city
(AFP) – 11 hours ago

MEXICO CITY — The United States has closed its consulate in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez to carry out a security review amid spiraling drug gang-related violence, officials said Friday.

The indefinite shutdown of the facility comes after the fatal shootings in March of three people linked to the US consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico's notorious crime capital.

"The US consulate general in Ciudad Juarez has closed to review its security posture," said a statement released by the US embassy in Mexico City.

"The facility will be closed all day on Friday, July 30, and remain closed until the security review is completed."

US officials added: "American citizens are advised avoid the area around the consulate general until it reopens."

In Washington, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters that the consulate was closed because "there is some threat information that we've received that we're evaluating."

But "it's hard to know" whether the threat information concerns the broad area around the consulate or is "more specific to the consulate itself," Crowley added.

He described the consulate as "a very significant facility for" the United States as it is a "major component of our ability to process these (visa) applications for Mexicans wishing to come to the United States."

Mexico has been gripped by drug-related bloodshed since President Felipe Calderon launched a military clampdown on the country's powerful drug gangs after taking office in December 2006.

In March this year gunmen killed Lesley Enriquez, an American working at the consulate, her American husband Arthur Redelfs, and Jorge Alberto Salcido, the Mexican husband of another US consular employee, in ambushes just minutes apart after they left a birthday party in the Mexican city.

US and Mexican investigators said they suspected members of the Los Aztecas gang of carrying out the hit.

Some 25,000 people have died in drug violence since 2006, including 7,000 this year alone, particularly in towns and cities near the US border.

A top leader of Mexico's Sinaloa drug gang, Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel, was killed Thursday while resisting arrest in a military raid in the western Mexican city of Guadalajara, the defense ministry said.

Separately the bodies of 15 people, many bearing marks of torture and bullet wounds, were found Thursday along a road in northern Mexico near the US border, an official said.

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