The mayor of a crime-ridden city in Mexico has been killed less than a week after taking office, the latest in a string of violent attacks targeting politicians in the country.

The gruesome killing represents yet another challenge for the country’s new president, who faces increasing pressure to show progress in the fight against violent cartels.

The mayor of Chilpancingo, the capital of Mexico’s violence-stricken Guerrero state, Alejandro Arcos, was killed on Sunday, just six days after assuming office. Guerrero Governor Evelyn Salgado confirmed the murder, expressing outrage and mourning over the loss. The state’s attorney general has opened an investigation into the killing.

The latest violence came just three days after another leading city official was shot to death in an area which is plagued by criminal gangs and drug violence.

Alejandro Arcos, the mayor of Chilpancingo in Mexico's violence-plagued state of Guerrero, was killed, six days after he took office. Photos circulated on WhatsApp showed a severed head believed to be of Arcos on the top of a pick-up truck.

The mayor of the capital of southern Mexico's Guerrero state has been killed less than one week after he took office.

The mayor of a state capital in southern Mexico has been killed just one week after he took office, officials said Sunday. Alejandro Arcos was sworn in last Monday as mayor of Chilpancingo, a city so violent that a drug gang openly staged a demonstration,

Arcos' social media posts show the mayor in recent days had been supervising disaster relief efforts following the impact of Hurricane John last month, which caused severe floodin

Alejandro Arcos' murder came days after the killing of another city official. according to the Institutional Revolutionary Party.

Alejandro Arcos, the newly appointed mayor of the Mexican city of Chilpancingo, has been killed one week after his inauguration.