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Three men shot dead in violence-plagued northern Mexican border city





ASSOCIATED PRESS

4:41 p.m. May 24, 2006

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico – Three men were shot to death in two different attacks in this dangerous border city, bringing to at least 115 the number of people slain by violence this year, authorities said Wednesday.
A 28-year-old mechanic was shot several times and died outside of his garage Tuesday, according to Rail Gland, an investigator from the attorney general's office for Tamaulipas state, which includes Nuevo Laredo.



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Police said at least two men armed with machine guns did the shooting, suggesting it was drug-related.
Just before midnight Tuesday, an unknown number of gunmen with assault rifles shot and killed two men in a vehicle as they arrived at one of their homes.

Authorities had yet to determine a motive in the second slaying and there were no arrests made in either case.

Located across the Rio Grande from Laredo, Texas, this city of about 340,000 has seen violence skyrocket since last year. Authorities attribute much of it to a pair of drug gangs who are waging a bloody struggle for control of key cocaine smuggling corridors into the United States.

Violence here got so bad last summer that President Vicente Fox ordered soldiers and federal agents to patrol the streets, in hopes of restoring order. The killings have continued, however.