16 gunmen killed in Mexico clashes, 3 police officers wounded by car bomb amid escalating cartel violence

Multiple clashes on Thursday between Mexican security forces and alleged criminals left at least 16 people dead in the violence-plagued southern state of Guerrero, the military said, on the same day that a car bomb left outside a police station in western Mexico wounded three officers. 

A first skirmish occurred in the town of Tecpan de Galeana, near the Pacific coast, where two were killed and four more injured.

Later, security forces battled with a criminal group that had attacked a military base in the same area, killing 14 gunmen, according to a statement by the SEDENA national defense secretariat.