Heavily armed gunmen blasted their way into the offices of a newspaper on Mexico’s drug-plagued border with the United States on Monday, tossing a grenade at journalists and gravely wounding a reporter.
A handful of men firing assault rifles burst into the newsroom of El Manana newspaper in the city of Nuevo Laredo, director Daniel Rosas told Reuters by telephone. One of the assailants tossed a grenade into the newsroom.
Night shift reporter Jaime Orozco was fighting for his life with five bullet wounds and others were injured by flying glass and debris, said Rosas.
Nuevo Laredo is on the front line of a war for control of the lucrative cross-border trade in cocaine, heroin and marijuana. Border violence has increased since Mexican President Vicente Fox declared war on drug cartels a year ago.
Journalists under fire
Brazen even by cartel assassins’ standards, Monday’s attack was the latest in a fresh wave of drug-related shootings.
Rosas said the gunmen’s methods and weapons left little doubt they were involved in the drug trade.
“It is very early to tell, but given the type of arms they used, you draw your own conclusions,” he said.
Journalists covering drug-related violence on Mexico’s northern border are constantly threatened and attacked.
Asked whether his newspaper had received death threats prior to the attack, Rosas said: “Not recently.”
