Hitmen shot dead five bikers as they left a restaurant in the north Mexico border city of Ciudad Juarez, and six other people died in overnight attacks in the area, officials said Monday.
Drug-related violence has exploded across Mexico since the launch of a government crackdown some two years ago, with more than 5,300 killed last year, including around 1,600 in Ciudad Juarez alone.
"Five motorcyclists were killed as they left a seafood restaurant in Ciudad Juarez on Sunday night," municipal security authorities said.
"Three bodies were thrown at the restaurant exit and two others lay in the carpark," officials said, adding that several women accompanying them survived.
Elsewhere in the city across from El Paso, Texas, gunmen fired on a coffin at a wake and also shot dead a sibling of the deceased, state justice authorities said.
Another five died in attacks in state capital Chihuahua and in Camargo, also in the northern state at the crossroads of major drug routes into the United States.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon has deployed some 36,000 troops across the country since taking office at the end of 2006 in a bid to quell a turf war between rival drug cartels, but violence continues to increase.
{{/usCountry}}Mexican President Felipe Calderon has deployed some 36,000 troops across the country since taking office at the end of 2006 in a bid to quell a turf war between rival drug cartels, but violence continues to increase.
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