Second Grenade Attack on Mexico Paper in Month

By: E&P Staff A fragmentation grenade exploded at the offices of Cambio Sonora Wednesday afternoon, the second such attack in a month at the daily in the Mexican city of Hermosillo, Sonora state.

National Mexican papers and the National Center for Social Communication, a Mexico City-based free press group known as Cencos, reported that this time the grenade exploded in the parking lot of the newspaper, damaging three vehicles and sending shrapnel into the building -- but causing no injuries.

On April 17, a grenade was thrown into the yard in front of the newspaper. There were no injuries, but the building?s exterior was damaged.

Cencos quoted the paper?s editor, Beatriz Espinsoa Sotelo, as saying the newsroom has no idea why the paper has been targeted. There were no threats before either attack, she said.

Cambio Sonora is a paper in the big OEM media company that publishes 70 dailies, and owns 24 radio stations, and a TV station.

The attack came during a particularly horrific wave of violence in Sonora arising from narcotics traffickers who are targeting law enforcement and each other.

On the same day as the grenade attack on Cambio Sonora, the Mexico City daily El Universal reported, in an article by Marcelo Beylis, that a gang of 50 heavily armed men apparently in the employ of narcotraffickers invaded a police station, kidnapping seven policemen and six civilians. In the ensuing firefights, 22 people were killed, including 15 gang members, five police officers and two civilians.