Federal and state officials say drug cartel henchmen carried out two deadly attacks against Jalisco police officers and installations in the space of four days last week.

A police officer stands guard over a bus and a furniture store damaged in a grenade attack in downtown Guadalajara on Sunday. The perpetrators had tried to target the state police headquarters. Photo by F. Sanchez.

The attacks, in Lagos de Moreno and Guadalajara, have shaken citizens in a state that has so far been relatively immune from the bloodthirsty violence characterizing Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s war on drug cartels.

On October 8, five Jalisco police officers died and three were wounded in an ambush after being lured to a gas station near Lagos de Moreno.

The unit responded to an anonymous report of a suspicious vehicle parked near an ATM machine. As they checked the vehicle, the officers were attacked by between 12 and 15 gunmen, who appeared in three late-model SUVs.

Reports said the gunmen fired up to 900 shots with submachine guns and rifles. Several MK2 grenades were also thrown at the officers, although only one exploded. The attack lasted just over five minutes.

Officers Jose Alejandro Ramirez Alvarez, Jose Antonio Alvarez Cantor, Martin Flores Torres, Samuel Alejandro Ascencio Perez and Raul Olvera Higuera died in the attack and were buried with full honors the next day. Their bodies showed between nine and 32 bullet wounds each, say Spanish-language news reports.

“This is the first attack of this magnitude that I remember against police officers,” said Jalisco Public Security Director Luis Carlos Najera. “This says a lot about the hatred that exists against the police.”

A reward of up to five million pesos is being offered for “true, reliable and honest” information leading to the arrest of the perpetrators.

Due to the commando style of the attack, authorities believe it was carried out by members of Los Zetas, a paramilitary criminal gang that operates as a hired army for the Mexican Gulf Cartel. While the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration advises that the Zetas may be the most technologically advanced, sophisticated and violent of paramilitary enforcement groups, the term in Mexico has also come to be used somewhat loosely for any unidentified drug cartel henchmen.

Just four days later, two MK2-M67 grenades were thrown at the Jalisco Public Security building in the heart of downtown Guadalajara, injuring six civilian passersby – two men, three women and an 8-year-old boy.

One grenade exploded at the police building corner of Ferrocarril and 16 de Septiembre, the other near the Coppel furniture store across the street. Officers standing guard were able to take cover and a passing personnel carrier suffered only two flat tires. Shrapnel from the grenades injured six passersby, including the driver of a public bus.

Police immediately closed down traffic in the area and are pursuing all leads, but have been unable to identify the perpetrators.

This is the second attack on the building this year. Two grenades killed one officer and injured two others on June 18.

“These attacks are happening because Jalisco has been working with all our strength against crime,” said State Government Secretary Fernando Guzman. “There have been arrests, there is no impunity, our hands will not shake and we will not hesitate in continuing with this policy.”

Guzman said state police officers are already working in coordination with Mexico’s armed forces, and that military patrols will begin soon.