Cops walk off the job after an attack on their police station with grenades and assault rifles

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The entire police force of a town in northern Mexico resigned after assailants attacked their station with grenades and assault rifles, according to news reports.

The mayor of Los Ramones, in the state of Nuevo Leon, confirmed that all 14 officers quit after the newly inaugurated headquarters and patrol cars were riddled with bullets and shrapnel.

Santos Salinas Garza said the state highway police was to take charge of security in the town of about 6,000 inhabitants about 60 kilometres east of Monterrey.

He said federal police and national army units were patrolling the area in search of the attackers, presumed to be from organized crime.

The mayor said neither the police nor himself had received any threats. No one was injured in the late night attack.

Neuvo Leon is one of Mexico's border states that is suffering a surge in armed violence this year, attributed to rival drug cartels  battling for control of lucrative smuggling routes into the US.