At least eleven people have been killed and eight others injured after a group of heavily armed gunmen attacked a drug rehabilitation center in northern Mexico, media reports citing officials said early Monday.
The incident reportedly happened late Sunday in the industrial city of Torreon, in the border state of Coahuila. Police officials were quoted as saying that the assailants escaped in two pick-up trucks after opening fire on those inside the facility.
The motive of Sunday's attack is not yet clear, but authorities suspect that it was carried out by drug cartel hit-men targeting rivals selling drugs at the facility under the pretext of seeking treatment for drug addiction.
Such attacks on drug rehabilitation centers are not infrequent in Mexico, where more than 60 people have been killed in such shootings in recent years. At least thirteen people were killed in a similar attack on another drug rehabilitation center in Torreon last June.
Mexican authorities say some of such attacks were launched by rival drug gangs to wipe out opponents undergoing treatment for addiction or hiding in rehabilitation centers. A similar attack on a rehab center in the northern city of Chihuahua had killed at least 19 people in June 2010. Officials claim that there were at least five such attacks on rehab centers in Mexico in 2010.
Mexico is currently struggling to contain the violence unleashed by rival drug cartels, mainly in the northern states, as they fight each other for the control of lucrative smuggling routes to the United States.
The Mexican government says that more than 45,000 people have died in drug-related violence in the country since President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against drug gangs after taking office in December 2006.
Besides fighting drug cartels, Calderon has deployed thousands of troops across the country to check drug-related violence and launched a massive anti-corruption drive named 'Operation Clean-up' to identify and punish public servants having links with drug cartels.
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