Fifteen police officers were killed in an ambush in Mexico, in what is said to be the deadliest attack in years against officers running after drug cartel.

Five officers were wounded in Monday's bloody attack in a highway near the Soyatan village.  The convoy carrying the elite force of the state police was en route to Guadalajara, Mexico when the gunmen carried out the assault.

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Authorities said the assailants built a makeshift encampment where they waited for the security forces for about one or two days.  The gang blocked the road using vehicles, poured gas on them and set them on fire. 

Police suspect the Jalisco New Generation Drug Cartel, one of the most recent and fastest-growing drug-trafficking criminal groups in Mexico, was behind the deadly ambush.  It was the biggest one-day loss for the Mexican elite security forces since President Enrique Pena Nieto's reign.  

Francisco Alejandro Solorio Arechiga, Jalisco's state security commissioner said that aside from the 15 elite officers, a municipal police chief  from another town was also killed in a separate attack.  

"They died in a cowardly attack, which means that we can't let our guard down," Solorio said.

The latest attack against Jalisco security forces has added the town to the growing list of focal points in the fight against drugs.

There had been clashes in the past between government forces and members of drug gangs in the cities of Michoacan, Guerrero, and the state of Tumalipas near the U.S. border. 

Police also suspect that the assault was in retaliation over the previous arrest of four gang members and a failed assassination attempt against Solorio. 

A security expert at the National Autonomous University of Mexico said the Jalisco drug cartel is a well-disciplined and heavily armed group.  They were able to expand their operational network from coast to coast in just six months, making them the largest operating gang in Mexico as of 2012. 

More than 100,000 people have been killed or have gone missing since tensions escalated in 2006 over the government's war against drugs. 

TagsMexico, Drugs, drug cartel, Jalisco