Jalisco is home to the Jalisco New Generation Drug Cartel who are believed to be responsible for the attack.

The biggest police murder in over two years happened in western Mexico where 15 police officers were killed in a gang ambush on Tuesday. Five more members of the countries drug fighting squad were also badly wounded.

The ambush was set on a rural highway near the village of Soyatan this Monday, while the forces were on their way to Guadalajara base.

It’s believed that the gang was possibly waiting for the convoy for a matter of days. The road was blocked and huge number of masked men attacked police officers. After the attack gang members poured fuel on their cars and set them on fire. The main suspect for this attack is the powerful Jalisco New Generation Drug Cartel.

Francisco Alejandro Solorio Arechiga, Jalisco’s state security commissioner said that wounded officers are in a stable condition at a meeting with state police officials. “They died in a cowardly attack, which means that we can’t let our guard down,” he added.

This is the biggest security force loss since Enrique Pena Nieto became President two years ago. In 2010 and 2012 Mexico lost 12 municipal and state officers in one day.

The same day when the attack on the convoy happened, Zacoalco de Torres, municipal police chief of the town was also killed. The question is now do the cartels want to start yet another war with police?

Less than a month ago gang members attempted to kill Solorio, but luckily for him, he got out without a scratch and four attackers were captured shortly after. The assassination attempt happened just a few days after an operation in which three Jalisco cartel members were killed. Authorities believe that convoy attack is just another revenge attempt to show the strength of the cartel.

March was a very turbulent month for Mexican police, since the same cartel members opened fire on a federal gendarmerie police in the town of Ocotlan, killing 11 people, including 5 police officers.

“The army, navy and police have dealt heavy blows against the Jalisco cartel and they are declaring war to the federal government, which is not common,” said a security expert at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Raul Benitez Manaut.

The Jalisco cartel was founded in 2010 after the death of Ignacio Coronel Villarreal, Sinaloa cartel’s leader in Jalisco. Sometimes they call themselves Matazetas or Zetas Killers because of a harsh rivalry with the Zetas cartel. It is believed that the leader of the cartel is Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes aka El Mencho who is still on the run, while his son El Menchito was arrested over a year ago.

Since the beginning of the cartel war in 2006 more than 100,000 people have been killed or have gone missing.