Six shot dead in Mexico disco in likely drug attack

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Gunmen stormed into a nightclub in the Mexican beach resort of Mazatlan and shot dead six people in what looked like the latest in a flurry of drug cartel attacks.

Early Saturday, four men entered the nightclub and fatally shot two waiters and a patron on a crowded dance floor. They then turned back and shot three more people at the door, an official at the public prosecutor's office in the northern state of Sinaloa said.

"It all happened while a local band was playing, that's when the shooting started," the official said, asking not to be quoted by name.

Drug gang killings have risen sharply this year. A murder toll of around 900 last month made January the deadliest month since President Felipe Calderon came to power in late 2006 and launched an army-led war on smuggling cartels.

Last month, gunmen opened fire at a teenage birthday party in the city of Ciudad Juarez, on the U.S. border, killing at least 13 high school students and two adults. Other recent attacks have taken place in bars and drug rehabilitation centers in the north of the country.

The governor of Chihuahua state, home to Ciudad Juarez, said on Saturday his office, the state legislature and state judiciary planned to move their operations to Ciudad Juarez to focus on calming the rampant drug violence there.

A spokesman for Gov. Jose Reyes told Reuters officials would start arranging the move next week.

Separately, the Chihuahua state prosecutor's office said a second suspect had been arrested for the student party shooting, which sparked angry protests from relatives that the Mexican government is not doing enough to prevent bloodshed.

Since Calderon launched his drug war just over three years ago, nearly 18,000 people have been slain across Mexico, mainly rival traffickers and police, a level of violence that worries the U.S. government, foreign investors and tourists along with Mexicans.

Chihuahua, on the U.S. border, and Sinaloa, on a lucrative Pacific coast smuggling route north and dominated by an smuggling alliance led by Mexico's most-wanted man, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, are the main hotspots in the drug war.

While few foreign tourists would venture near Ciudad Juarez, the Pacific resort of Mazatlan is lined with luxury hotels and glitzy discotheques that attract vacationers and wealthy drug barons.

(Reporting by Miguel Angel Gutierrez in Mexico City and Julian Cardona in Ciudad Juarez; Writing by Catherine Bremer)