At least 9 US citizens die in cartel attack in north Mexico

Drug cartel gunmen ambushed three SUVs along a dirt road, slaughtering at least six children and three women — all of them US citizens living in northern Mexico — in a grisly attack that left one of their SUVs a burned-out, bullet-riddled hulk, authorities said Tuesday. Another child was wounded, and one was missing. The dead included 6-month-old twins.

Mexican Security Secretary Alfonso Durazo said the attackers may have mistaken the group's large SUVs for those of rival gangs. He said at least five children were taken to Phoenix for treatment. In a tweet, President Donald Trump immediately offered to help Mexico "wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth." But Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador rejected that approach, saying his predecessors waged war, "and it didn't work."

A relative said the victims lived in the hamlet of La Mora in Sonora state, a decades-old settlement founded as an offshoot of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A number of the victims were believed to be members of the LeBaron family. La Mora is about 70 miles (110 kilometers) south of Douglas, Arizona. Many of the church's members were born in Mexico and thus have dual citizenship.

While some of the split-off factions were once polygamous, many no longer are. Extended families live in farming communities clustered around the Chihuahua-Sonora state border. The group was attacked Monday while traveling in a convoy of three SUVs toward Pancho Villa, Chihuhua. The relative asked not to be named for fear of reprisals.

The relative said he had located the burned-out SUV containing the remains of his nephew's wife and her four children — the twin babies and two other children, 8 and 10. Authorities the Chevy Tahoe's gas tank had apparently been hit by gunfire and exploded. 

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)