gunmen near the border city of Ciudad Juárez opened fire early Thursday on two buses carrying employees of a U.S.-owned factory, killing four people

In the first attack of its kind in more than three years of gangland terror, gunmen near the border city of Ciudad Juárez opened fire early Thursday on two buses carrying employees of a U.S.-owned factory, killing four people and wounding 14.
The employees were heading home after their evening shift about 1 a.m. when the killers struck near the small village of Caseta, near the Rio Grande southeast of Juárez.

The assailants forced a man off one of the buses and then opened fire on the other occupants, investigators said.

Killed were three women and a man, all employees of Eagle Ottawa Leather, a company headquartered in a Detroit suburb that makes leather upholstery for automobiles.

State investigators and the trade group representing Juárez's 324 foreign-owned factories — called maquiladoras — said the attack appeared to target the man who was kidnapped rather than Eagle Ottawa or its employees in general.