CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico, (Reuters) – Gunmen in the  drug war-plagued Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez killed two  Americans and a Mexican linked to the local U.S. consulate, an  attack U.S. President Barack Obama said “outraged” him.
An American woman working at the consulate in Ciudad  Juarez, just over the border from El Paso, Texas, and her U.S.  husband were fatally shot by suspected drug gang hitmen in  broad daylight on Saturday as they left a consulate social  event, U.S. and Mexican officials told Reuters.

A Mexican man married to another consulate employee was  killed around the same time in another part of the city after  he and his wife left the same event, a U.S. official said.

The U.S. official, who asked not to be identified, said it  was not clear if the victims had been specifically targeted,  and the motive for the attacks was unknown.

Bloodshed has exploded in recent months in Ciudad Juarez as  the head of the Juarez cartel, Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, fights  off a bloody offensive by Mexico’s No. 1 fugitive drug lord,  Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman, at the worst hotspot of Mexico’s  three-year-old drug war.

“The president is deeply saddened and outraged by the  news,” said White House National Security Council spokesman  Mike Hammer. He said Obama “shares in the outrage of the  Mexican people at the murders of thousands in Ciudad Juarez and  elsewhere in Mexico.”

The U.S. State Department updated its warning on travel to  Mexico to say it had authorized the departure of dependents of  U.S. government personnel from consulates in Ciudad Juarez and  five other northern border cities.

Nearly 19,000 people have been killed since President  Felipe Calderon came to power in Mexico in late 2006 and  launched a military assault on the country’s powerful drug  cartels, sparking a surge in violence that has alarmed  Washington, foreign investors and tourists.