Mexico City, March 21 (IANS/EFE): Ten people died in a shootout in the western Mexican state of Jalisco pitting law enforcement officers against suspected members of a criminal gang, police said on Friday.

Five members of the Gendarmerie, a division of the federal police; three purported cartel enforcers; and two civilians who "apparently were not involved in the incident" were killed, the institution said.

The statement said the civilians appeared to be caught in the same gunfire that was directed at the police.

Eight other members of the Gendarmerie, created in August 2014, "were wounded, one of them seriously, and were taken to different hospitals for medical treatment".

The attack occurred at around 9:15 p.m. on Thursday when the officers, riding in seven vehicles, were patrolling a neighbourhood in the town of Ocotlan, according to witnesses.

"As the official convoy was passing by and without a word uttered," a person in a parked vehicle "took out a rifle and fired at the federal officers," who repelled the aggression, the statement read.

Other armed individuals riding in around 10 vehicles then arrived at the scene and fired high-caliber weapons at the police from different directions.

After the shootout, some of the assailants continued firing their weapons as they fled the scene, damaging nearby cars.

Police seized seven rifles, four fragmentation grenades and five vehicles believed to have been used by the attackers, the statement said.

The federal attorney general's office will handle the investigation.

Jalisco has been the scene of a turf battle between the Jalisco Nueva Generacion drug cartel and the La Resistencia mob, which in September 2011 formed an alliance with the Los Zetas criminal organisation to combat its rival.