"Local reports say the family may have been mistakenly attacked by rival cartels fighting for territory", NPR's Carrie Kahn reports. According the Mexican Security Secretary, six children were also wounded and five have gone to hospitals in Phoenix, Ariz.
Mexican media reported that the victims belonged to the LeBaron family, associated with a breakaway Mormon community that settled in northern Mexico decades ago, and that the dead as well as additional missing family members may all be U.S. citizens.
Trump spoke to López Obrador on November 5, "to discuss the recent violence in Mexico and efforts to combat the growing violent behavior of cartels and criminal groups in the region", White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley said in a release. "That is not an option".
It was the second failure in recent weeks for López Obrador's "hugs not bullets" anti-crime strategy.
He said that if Mexico needed help "cleaning out these monsters", then the US "stands ready, willing & able to get involved and do the job quickly and effectively".
The slaughter of US citizens on Mexican soil quickly became an global issue, with US President Donald Trump tweeting, "This is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth".
Security officials said the attack on Tuesday which occurred on a dirt road between Chihuahua and Sonora states, which border the US. The LeBaron's Mormon community is only seventy miles south of Douglas, Arizona. Many members were born in Mexico and have dual citizenship.
The group was attacked while travelling in a convoy of SUVs.
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A man named Alma Dayer LeBaron launched what he called "Colonia LeBaron" in the region about 70 years ago after having a vision that his multiple descendants would live in peace and prosperity among the pecan orchards they'd plant in the region, The Seattle Times reported in 2009.
The four children who perished were twin 6-month old babies and two other children aged 8 and 10.
Trump appeared to confirm that cartel gunmen were behind the attack, tweeting on Tuesday how the victims "got caught between two vicious drug cartels, who were shooting at each other, with the result being many great American people killed, including young children, and some missing". It added that there are still some people missing.
"But in these cases", AMLO said, "we have to act independently and according to our constitution, and in line with our tradition of independence and sovereignty".
LeBaron had broken down in her SUV when gunmen opened fire, torching the vehicle and causing the petrol tank to explode.
Taylor Langford said after Monday's bloodshed: "I would like to see the government actually step in and do something about the cartels rather than back down every time they wave their guns at us". "The cartels from Sonora, there were probably 50 or 60 of them, armed to the teeth".
Jhon LeBaron, another relative, posted on his Facebook page that his aunt and another woman were dead, which could bring the death toll to at least seven. He also posted that six of his aunt's children had been left abandoned but alive on a roadside. A number of extended Mormon families live in farming communities clustered around the Chihuahua-Sonora state border.
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