Washington, April 11: An explosive device exploded near the US consulate in Nuevo Laredo in northeastern Mexico on Saturday.
“There was an explosion just outside the US consulate in Nuevo Laredo,” said a spokesman from the federal prosecutors’ office, adding what seemed to be a homemade device went off shortly after midnight with no immediate reports of injuries but some material damage.
The Mexican army dispatched a unit to the explosion site on Saturday morning.
Powerful drug cartels are currently engaged in bloody turf wars in Mexico and often clash with police and army forces.
Soon after taking office in December 2006, Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched a military crackdown on drug-related crime.
The clampdown, however, could not prevent the deaths of some 15,000 people killed in unrelenting drug-fueled violence, particularly near the US border.
In almost simultaneous assaults last month, a US consulate worker and her husband, both American nationals, were killed in the turbulent northern city of Ciudad Juarez. A Mexican man married to another consulate staffer was also killed in the attacks.
———Agencies