Last month the Mexican government backed-down from a drug cartel in Culiacan, releasing the two sons of drug lord El Chappo after the cartel overwhelmed the Mexican military during an attempted arrest. The cartel defeated the Mexican military.

Today, three American mothers and six children (4 boys, 2 girls) were brutally murdered in northern Mexico by drug cartels prompting President Trump to offer military assistance to Mexican President Lopez-Obrador in the ongoing struggle against cartel violence.

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MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Gunmen killed nine women and children in the bloodiest attack on Americans in Mexico for years, prompting U.S. President Donald Trump to offer to help the neighboring country wipe out drug cartels believed to be behind the ambush.

All nine people killed in Monday’s daytime attack at the border of Chihuahua and Sonora belonged to the Mexican-American LeBaron family, members of a breakaway Mormon community that settled in northern Mexico’s hills and plains decades ago.

A video posted on social media showed the charred and smoking remains of a vehicle riddled with bullet holes that was apparently carrying the victims on a dirt road when the attack occurred.

[…] A relative, Julian LeBaron, called the incident a massacre and said some family members were burned alive.

In a text message to Reuters he wrote that four boys, two girls and three women were killed. Several children who fled the attack were lost for hours in the countryside before being found, he said. He said it was unclear who carried out the attack.

[…] Trump tweeted that he would await a call from Lopez Obrador, urging him to accept U.S. assistance.

Lopez Obrador said he would call Trump on Tuesday about ways to cooperate on security but rejected what he called any foreign government intervention.

“I’ll speak with President Trump to thank him for his support, and to see if in cooperation agreements there’s the possibility of getting help,” he told a news conference. “I don’t think we need the intervention of a foreign government to deal with these cases,” he added.

[…] “War is irrational. We believe in peace,” said Lopez Obrador, a leftist who took office last December. (read more)