A masked man opened fire against a band playing popular norteño music Saturday in Chihuahua city, killing five musicians, four customers and injuring 10 others.
Chihuahua prosecutors spokesman Carlos Gonzalez said the attack appeared to target members of the La Quinta Banda group, but the motive wasn't clear. The suspect fired about 40 times with a high-caliber weapon in the Far West disco.
Among the dead was an off-duty police officer, Gonzalez said.
Norteño singers in Mexico have been targeted before apparently for getting involved with drug groups, which pay them to compose narcocorridos, or ballads that glorify drug lords.
People who answered cellphones listed for La Quinta Banda identified themselves as relatives of the musicians but didn't want to give their names.
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The band had reduced its workload, while sometimes playing at extravagant parties in ranches, because of increased drug violence in the northern state of Chihuahua.
Also on Saturday, federal police announced the capture of a leader of one armed gang hired by the world's most powerful drug lord Joaquin Guzman, also known as El Chapo.
Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo, 33, is the suspected leader of Gente Nueva, an armed wing of the Sinaloa Cartel mainly based in the border city of Ciudad Juarez. Federal police agents arrested Torres with his bodyguard Friday in the central Mexican city of Leon.
