Gunmen ambushed a military convoy in northwestern Mexico today, killing four soldiers and stealing an ambulance that was carrying a wounded criminal, authorities said.
Nine other people, including a rescue worker, were wounded in the pre-dawn attack in Culiacan, capital of the state of Sinaloa, the bastion of the drug cartel led by imprisoned kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.
The soldiers were escorting the ambulance after the suspect was hurt in an initial shootout in the municipality of Badiraguato, a mountainous region where Guzman was born.
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"We are concerned. This was an act of cowardice," Vargas Landeros told reporters before an emergency security meeting.
"The soldiers were taking a wounded person who had participated in a clash with the army and they rescued him, taking him and the ambulance."
A military humvee burned in the attack, while hundreds of high-caliber bullet shells used for assault rifles littered the street.
The official did not say whether Guzman's Sinaloa drug cartel or another gang was responsible for the ambush.
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