Six soldiers were killed and eight others wounded when gunmen suspected of acting on the orders of the sons of jailed drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman attacked an army convoy, Mexican officials say.
The troops were escorting an ambulance carrying an injured prisoner from the town of Badiraguato to Culiacan, the capital of the western state of Sinaloa, state public safety co-ordinator Moises Melo told reporters.
Assailants armed with grenades and assault rifles ambushed the convoy as it arrived in Culiacan, he said.
Four soldiers were pronounced dead at the scene and two others died later. Eight troops and a Red Cross paramedic were wounded.
The attackers set two army vehicles on fire and commandeered the ambulance transporting the prisoner, the commander of the 3rd Military Region, Gen. Alfonso Duarte, said during a press conference.
"It's very probable that after the arrest of Julio Oscar Ortiz Vega people here in Culiacan were told to expect him," the general said, indicating that the assault was probably the work of "the sons of Chapo."
Sources in the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) say that Ivan Archivaldo and Jesus Alfredo Guzman have assumed the leadership of the Sinaloa cartel in the absence of their jailed father.
