11 killed in attack on Mexican drug rehab centre

Eleven people were killed and at least nine others wounded in northwestern Mexico when a group of contract gunmen attacked a drug rehabilitation center in the city of Torreon, police said. "The armed attackers came on two pickup trucks, entered the center and opened fire," a senior police official told AFP on condition of anonymity. The assault on the church-operated rehabilitation center known as "Your Life on the Rock" occurred at 9:15 pm Sunday (0215 GMT Monday), police officials said. The gunmen used AR-15 assault rifles and nine-millimeter caliber pistols, the police noted, saying more people could have been wounded in the attack. According to eyewitnesses, some of the victims walked away from the center and disappeared before the police arrived. The dead have not been identified yet. The assault took place nearly a year after an attack on a similar rehabilitation center in Torreon, located in Coahuila state, that also left 11 people dead and two wounded. Five drug rehabilitation centers -- all in the north of the country -- were attacked in 2010. Mexico has been struggling with a massive crime wave in recent years, with more than 50,000 people believed to have been killed in drug-related violence since 2006. That year the government launched a military crackdown on the country's powerful drug cartels, which are themselves locked in brutal turf wars marked by macabre displays of violence such as beheadings and mass graves. The government's official count of more than 47,000 dead has not been updated since last September.