CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico — Gunmen killed a retired army general who took over a month ago as police chief of the violence- wracked Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo, the government of northern Tamaulipas state said Thursday. Two of his bodyguards also were slain, and two suffered wounds.
City Public Safety chief Manuel Farfan was attacked late Wednesday, according to an official statement, which did not indicate who was suspected.
Nuevo Laredo, across the border from Laredo, Texas, has been the scene of bloody drug- gang turf battles, and Farfan had received telephone threats since taking over as the city’s top public-safety official Jan. 1.
One of the two dead bodyguards also was a retired army officer. Military officers have been recruited in many northern Mexico cities to reform and discipline corrupt local police forces.
Also Thursday, Mexico’s federal government announced an agreement to provide more than $41.5 million for public-safety and law-enforcement programs in northern Chihuahua state, home to the violent border city of Ciudad Juárez.
