A highway gun attackon security forces in northern Mexico left 10 people dead on Monday, authorities said.

“Civil Force personnel were attacked with bullets by subjects who were traveling aboard three armored trucks,” Nuevo Leon Public Security Secretary Gerardo Palacios wrote on Facebook.

Ten criminal suspects were killed and four officers injured, he added.

The attack took place along a highway between Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas states, a region hit by violence connected to organized crime.

Roads between the two states havebeen the scenes of kidnappings, disappearances and robberies.

Mexico has counted more than 340,000 killings and some 100,000 disappearances — most attributed to organized criminal gangs — since the launch of the government’s controversial anti-drug operation in 2006.(AFP)