A car bomb explodes outside a police station in western Mexico, wounding 3 officers

ACAMBARO, Mexico (AP) — A car bomb left outside a police station in the town of Acambaro in western Mexico has wounded three people, prosecutors in the violence-wracked state of Guanajuato said Thursday.

They said another explosion occurred in the nearby town of Jerecuaro, but nobody was wounded.

The near-simultaneous attacks in two different towns about a half-hour apart suggested the involvement of drug cartels that have been fighting bloody turf battles for years in Guanajuato.

Despite the violence, newly inaugurated President Claudia Sheinbaum pledged to continue the “hugs, not bullets” approach of her predecessor. Sheinbaum said Thursday she has ordered the army “not to have confrontations” with the cartels.

“We are not going to return to a war against the narcos,” Sheinbaum said.

But it takes two to tango, and her administration already appears to be engaged in a war-like situation with the cartels in several states, whether she likes it or not, just three weeks after she took office.

The car bomb in Acambaro was sizable enough to toss parts of the burnt-out car across a tree-lined median strip in the street outside the police station, according to photos distributed by the municipal police.

The powerful blast apparently blew out the windows and doors of nearby homes.

It was the most serious car-bomb attack against authorities in Mexico since June 2023, when a cartel used a car bomb to kill a National Guard officer in the nearby Guanajuato city of Celaya.

In July 2023, a drug cartel in the neighboring state of Jalisco set off a coordinated series of seven roadway bombs that killed four police officers and two civilians. The improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, had apparently been planted in holes dug in the roadway.

The use of car bombs and improvised explosive devices illustrate the increasingly open, military-style challenge posed by the country’s drug cartels.

Sheinbaum has pledged to continue the policy of her predecessor and mentor, former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, of avoiding confrontations with drug cartels. He publicly appealed to the gangs to keep violence down, and offered training programs aimed at reducing the number of young recruits for the cartels.

The policy did not result in any significant reduction in Mexico’s historically high levels of homicides.