Mexican officials assassinated in rare attack in capital

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The Mexico City mayor’s personal secretary and another close adviser were shot dead on Tuesday in the capital, in a highly unusual crime targeting senior officials at the heart of power.

Ximena Guzmán and José Muñoz were on a central road when they were gunned down in broad daylight by assailants who were travelling on a motorbike, said mayor Clara Brugada, whose post is considered the country’s most important elected role after the president.

President Claudia Sheinbaum, who governed the capital until 2023, received the news while starting her live morning news conference. Her Security Minister Omar García Harfuch was due to give an update on arrests and seizures of drugs in the country when he conferred with the president and walked out to make a call in view of reporters. 

“We will get to the bottom of this situation and there will be justice,” Sheinbaum said. The pair had been “working in our movement for a long time”, she said.

Mexico City, a magnet for tourists from around the world, has generally been considered safer than much of the rest of the country and somewhat isolated from political assassinations that are frequent in some states.

García Harfuch himself was, however, the target of an assassination attempt in the capital in 2020 by a drug cartel. 

Authorities have long tried to play down the idea of major international drug cartels operating in the capital. They emphasise the city’s more than 80,000 security cameras and high concentration of police officers.

But a report this year by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) indicated that major groups such as the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel had a “significant” presence.

Guzmán was one of Brugada’s closest collaborators, local media reported, and had worked with her since her days as mayor of Iztapalapa, the capital’s most populous area.

Violence in Mexico has grown sharply since it began a war on drug cartels in 2006, with combined murders and disappearances still near record highs.

The groups have fragmented and are waging turf wars to control the drugs, extortion and oil theft businesses across the country, often with the collusion of authorities. 

Under intense pressure from US President Donald Trump, Sheinbaum has taken a more aggressive approach to security than her predecessor, increasing detentions, extraditions and drug seizures. Trump and his team have not ruled out unilateral US military intervention in the country.

During the 2024 national and local election cycle, more than 40 candidates were murdered, according to civil society counts.