Six gunned down after dispute in city street

Gunmen killed six young men in the Mexican capital yesterday, an official said.

The men, in their late teens and early twenties, were together on a street in the middle of the night when the gunmen arrived, Mexico City attorney general Miguel Angel Mancera said.

Angry words were exchanged, and the gunmen opened fire.

It was the fourth major shooting in Mexico in less than a week. All have happened in different parts of the country and appear to be unrelated.

Mr Mancera said he did not know if drug gangs were involved in the shooting in Tepito, a working-class neighbourhood just north of Mexico City's colonial centre. Drug-dealing is rampant there, but Mr Mancera said there had also been disputes among carjacking gangs.

"It is a complicated zone, a delicate zone," Mr Mancera said.

The shooting occurred a day after gunmen killed 15 people at a carwash in Tepic, a city in the Pacific coast state of Nayarit.

Over the weekend, gunmen massacred 14 young people at a party in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, and 13 recovering addicts were killed in an attack on a drug rehab centre in Tijuana.