Mexico ( Two Gunned Down Outside Bar in Western Mexico )

CULIACAN, Mexico – Two people were killed and another wounded when gunmen opened fire on a group of youths outside a bar in the western Mexican city of Culiacan, sources in the Sinaloa state Attorney General’s Office told Efe.

Cousins Diego Antonio Espinoza Leyva and Jose Salazar Leyva died in the parking lot of the Mala Noche bar.

The assailants were carrying AK-47 assault rifles – Mexican mobsters’ weapon of choice – and investigators found 32 shell casings at the scene in Culiacan, the state capital, the sources said.

Elsewhere in Sinaloa, a woman was stabbed to death in the coastal city of Mazatlan, a popular stop for cruise ships.

The victim was identified as Alejandra Valle Lizarraga, 24. Her husband, 22-year-old Eliseo Martinez Padilla, suffered injuries in the attack.

The western state is the bastion of the Sinaloa cartel, Mexico’s most powerful drug trafficking organization.