At least seven people were killed and 15 others injured in a violence on Friday in parts of Mexico's western state of Jalisco after local government launched an operation against a drug cartel.
Jalisco Governor Aristoteles Sandoval at a press conference said that the violence, including setting branches of banks on fire, blocking roads, and burning cars and buses, was in reaction to the state's operations against regional drug traffickers, Xinhua news agency reported.
"The Jalisco operation aims to arrest all the members of a single criminal organisation," El Universal, a daily newspaper, quoted Sandoval as saying.
While the governor did not name the organisation, the attacks were believed to be carried out by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which has been locked in a bloody battle with local authorities.
Sandoval said there had been a total of seven deaths on Friday, but did not specify the circumstances or the victims.
Fifteen people had been arrested during the operation and there were four armed confrontations, he added.
The Secretariat of National Defence confirmed that at least three soldiers and a state police officer were killed, and 12 soldiers were wounded in clashes in Guadalajara, capital of the state, and some 13 other cities.
