Gunmen assault Acapulco offices

Gunmen as soldiers staged and videotaped simultaneous assaults on two offices of the state attorney general in the resort of Acapulco, killing at least seven people in violence officials blamed on drug traffickers.

The assailants told workers in the offices, located 15km north of the Pacific resort's tourist zone, that they were conducting a weapons revision, then opened fire after the officers handed over their weapons, said Erit Montufar, director-general of the attorney general's investigative police offices in Guerrero state.

Five police investigators and two secretaries died in Tuesday's attacks, which were carried out by two groups of about eight gunmen in military uniforms, said Enrique Gil Mercado, the office's special prosecutor in Guerrero, where Acapulco is located.

In a statement issued late on Tuesday, the federal attorney general's office said the attacks were part of a struggle between rival drug cartels and their reaction to a crackdown on drug trafficking launched by President Felipe Calderon. Acapulco lies on a smuggling route for cocaine heading north from Colombia to the US.

Since taking office in December, Calderon has deployed more than 24,000 soldiers and federal police nationwide to fight drug gangs, including about 7,000 sent to the Acapulco region.

Acapulco suffered a wave of killings as rival drug cartels fight over coastal smuggling routes.