A Mexican cartel deployed explosive devices to attack a state police installation on Wednesday, Baja California’s Attorney General confirmed Thursday. The incident led the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana to issue a security alert advising U.S. citizens in the area to take precautions.
A crime group reportedly used three drones to launch a crude improvised explosive device with plastic bottles filled with nails, pellets and other metal pieces on the state attorney general’s offices in Mexico’s northern border city of Tijuana on Wednesday night.
The device struck the office of the attorney general’s anti-kidnapping unit, damaging cars but causing no deaths or injuries, according to state Attorney General María Elena Andrade Ramírez.
Andrade Ramírez confirmed that an organized crime group was behind the attack but declined to name it.
Following the attack, the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana issued a security alert.
“We have received confirmation of the report of an attack on offices belonging to the Baja California state attorney general’s office in the Playas de Tijuana area,” the consulate wrote on the social media platform X.
The agency warned people to avoid the area around any ongoing police presence, monitor local media for updates and inform family and friends of their status.
Andrade Ramírez said the incident was being investigated as an act of terrorism and stressed that the attack was against the office rather than any particular agent. She also denied reports of shots being fired after the attack.
“It was an attack directly on the patio of our installation,” said Andrade Ramírez. “As a way to ease the public’s mind, this was not an attempt on the residents, and we don’t believe it has anything to do with our proximity to the border.”
The attack follows the vandalism of the anti-car-theft and anti-kidnapping offices of the state police in Ensenada, around 60 miles south of Tijuana, on September 21, when police vehicles were also set on fire.
Seven people were detained in connection to that crime, according to the attorney general.
Wednesday night’s attack may be related to the Ensenada incident and the arrests that followed, Andrade Ramírez said, suggesting that cartels have been retaliating against the government’s crackdown on their illicit activities.
With reports from Reuters and Border Report
