Nine Americans killed in a bloodiest attack in Mexico

Gunmen killed nine women and children in the bloodiest attack on Americans in Mexico for years, prompting US President Donald Trump to offer to help the neighbouring 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.

"This is for the record," says a male voice speaking English in an American accent, off-camera, choking with emotion.

"Nita and four of my grandchildren are burnt and shot up," the man says, apparently referring to Rhonita Baron, one of the three women who died in the attack.

Reuters could not independently verify the video.

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.

"We don't know why, though they had received indirect threats. We don't know who did it," he told Reuters.

Mexican Security Minister Alfonso Durazo said the nine, travelling in several SUVs, may have been victims of mistaken identity, given the high number of violent confrontations among warring drug gangs in the area.

But the LeBaron extended family has often been in conflict with drug traffickers in Chihuahua and a relative of the victims said the killers surely knew who they were targeting.

"We've been here for more than 50 years. There's no-one who doesn't know them. Whoever did this was aware. That's the most terrifying," said Alex LeBaron, a relative, in one of the villages inhabited by the extended family.

All of the dead were US citizens, he told Reuters, and most also held dual citizenship with Mexico. They were attacked while driving on backroads in a convoy of cars containing the women along with 14 children, he said. Some were headed for Tucson airport to collect relatives.

In 2010, two members of the Chihuahua Mormon community, including one from the LeBaron family, were killed in apparent revenge after security forces tracked drug gang members. The Mormons had suffered widespread kidnappings before that.

Trump: Time to 'wage war'

Under Trump, the United States and Mexico have often been at odds over trade, the US president's anti-immigration rhetoric and his plans to build a wall on their common border.

Trump has praised Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, his Mexican counterpart who took office 11 months ago, for helping reduce flows of Central American migrants to the United States.

However, he has increasingly expressed concerns about a recent spate of cartel violence. He praised Lopez Obrador for focusing on combating the gangs but said more needed to be done.

"This is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth," Trump said in a tweet reacting to the massacre.

Later, he and Lopez Obrador (photo) spoke by phone, with the US president offering help to ensure the perpetrators face justice. The Mexican leader said he would ensure justice was done.

Prior to the call, Lopez Obrador rejected what he called any foreign government intervention.

Mexico has used its military in a war on drug cartels since 2006. Despite the arrest or killing of leading traffickers, the campaign has not succeeded in reducing drug violence and has led to more killings as criminal groups fight among themselves.

The government has registered more than 250,000 homicides in the last dozen years, most of them related to the drug war.

Lopez Obrador has blasted the security strategy of previous Mexican governments, saying more than a decade of war against drug traffickers is officially over and he will seek alternative solutions.

"War is irrational. We believe in peace," said Lopez Obrador, a leftist who took office last December.

The US Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI already work closely with Mexico to combat the cartels.

Falko Ernst, a senior analyst for the International Crisis Group in Mexico, said Trump's tweet suggests he may be gearing up to pressure Mexico over security, especially with his campaign underway for re-election in November 2020.

"If he throws in his whole leverage, as we've seen with migration, then there is very little the Mexican government can do to hold its ground," Ernst said.

Northwestern Mexico has been home to small Mormon and Mormon-linked communities with family ties to the United States since the late 19th century. The early Mormon settlers in Mexico fled the threat of arrest in the United States for practising polygamy. The practice is observed by a shrinking number of Mormons in Mexico.

Eric Hawkins, a spokesperson for the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said it understood the victims were not members of the institution, but that the church was "heartbroken" over the attack.

"Our love, prayers and sympathies are with them as they mourn and remember their loved ones," Hawkins said in a statement.

- Reuters