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Gunmen kill US airman in attack on bar in Mexico

Associated Press - November 4, 2009 7:35 PM ET

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) - A gang of gunmen killed an off-duty U.S. airman and five other people early today at a bar in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez.

Authorities say four other men were killed outside an elementary school in another part of town. That raises to 30 the number of homicides in Ciudad Juarez in just four days.

There was no immediate information on a motive for the early morning attack at the Amadeus bar, which also left a seventh person wounded. But Arturo Sandoval, a spokesman for prosecutors in northern Chihuahua state, says the methods bore the hallmarks of attacks by drug cartels.

Among the dead is Staff Sgt. David Booher, who was assigned to the medical unit of the 49th Fighter Wing at Holloman Air Force outside Alamogordo, N.M., about 90 miles north of Ciudad Juarez.

Earlier this year, the 12th Air Force barred airmen from traveling in Mexico's Chihuahua state. Soldiers from Fort Bliss also are barred from going to Chihuahua. Fort Bliss is just outside El Paso, across the border from Juarez.

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