Officials in Mexico say that a senior army general who had just retired from office has been killed near Mexico City

Until his retirement, Gen Jorge Juarez Loera was the number three in the Mexican army and a key figure in Mexico's war on drugs. Officials said that the general was shot dead when he got out of his car after a traffic accident in Tlalnepantla. Until 2008, Gen Juarez Loera headed the Joint Operation Chihuahua which targeted drug trafficking in the northern states of Chihuahua, Coahuila and Durango.