Gunmen kill four car dealers as Mexican drug war drags on

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AFP) - Four used car salesmen were killed execution style and the dealership set on fire in north-eastern Mexico, officials said Wednesday as four suspects in the murder of 15 partygoers were arrested.

"A group of gunmen overcame four employees of a used car dealership in Mazatlan; they shut them inside an office and riddled them with bullets," a spokesperson for the northeastern Sinaloa state attorney general's office told AFP.

"Later (the gunmen) sprinkled the facility with gasoline and set it on fire. Ten or 12 cars were burned."

Sinaloa state is reputedly home to most of Mexico's drug cartel bosses, who the government blames for thousands of murders across the country in the past three years.

In Ciudad Juarez, meanwhile, police said they arrested four suspects in the January 31 shooting death of 15 young partygoers in the northern border city that has seen the country's worst drug-related violence.

The massacre of mostly teenagers shocked even a country as hardened to daily violence as Mexico and sent police scrambling to bring in its culprits.

The arrested suspects "were identified as participants in the shooting by the other detainees" in the case, said Chihuahua state Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez.

She said that during the arrests police found weapons allegedly used in the massacre.

Eight suspects have now been arrested in connection with the mass murder. Another suspect was killed in a shootout with soldiers and 20 other suspects are still at large, Gonzalez added.

Gruesome gangland-style killings have spiraled in recent years in the city across from El Paso, Texas. The city saw some 2,660 murders in 2009 alone, despite the deployment of some 6,000 soldiers in a nationwide crackdown on organized crime.

Suspected drug attacks have left more than 15,000 dead across Mexico in the past three years, as the government has deployed some 50,000 troops countrywide to tackle the growing violence.