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(CNN) - The FBI will participate in the investigation of an attack that left nine people dead last week in Mexico, near the US border.
Three women and six children, all of Mormon faith, were shot dead in the mountains on November 4 when alleged drug cartels opened fire on a remote dirt road in the state of Sonora. The victims were citizens with dual citizenship of Mexico and the United States.
"The FBI will provide assistance at the invitation of the Mexican Government in the investigation of the recent attack against US citizens," the FBI said in a statement. "The FBI remains committed to working together with our international partners to help bring justice to the perpetrators of this heinous act of violence."
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mexico sent an invitation to the FBI to assist in the investigation. In a statement on Sunday, Mexico reiterated its commitment to investigate the facts to ensure justice for affected families.
LOOK : The pain of the LeBarón
The horrible massacre in broad daylight surprised even a country devastated by drug violence and on the way to a record number of homicides this year. The caravan carrying women and children was ambushed and sprayed with hundreds of rounds of ammunition. A mother was shot dead while begging for the children to be saved.
The Government quickly suggested that the attack was a case of mistaken identity as a result of a conflict between rival drug trafficking groups in a virtually lawless region near the US border.
"We still don't have all the necessary agents," President Andres Manuel López Obrador admitted this week, who took office in December. “There are municipalities where we have no police ... Everything related to public safety was completely abandoned. We are working on that".
Mexican authorities said the massacre could be related to a shooting a day earlier in the town of Agua Prieta, on the other side of the border with Douglas, Arizona. The corridor is a center to move drugs to the United States.
MIRA : Los Jaguares and La Línea: What do we know about the criminal groups involved in the Sonora massacre?
A criminal group known as Los Salazar, in the state of Sonora, exchanged shots with members of La Línea, the armed arm of the Juarez cartel based in Chihuahua. The Line then sent an armed group to prevent its rivals from entering Chihuahua, said General Homero Mendoza, chief of the national defense cabinet of Mexico. Those gunmen could have confused the vehicles of the families with the SUVs of their rivals.
At the state level, Chihuahua's attorney general, César Peniche Espejel, offered another theory: a group of drug traffickers known as Los Jaguares, a branch of the Sinaloa cartel, could have been behind the massacre.
Kendra Lee Miller, who lost her sister-in-law in the attack, said "the posters have taken too many members of our family." She said the posters had recently threatened her family about where she can travel.
Ray Sánchez of CNN contributed to this report.
LeBarón family