Three Mexican soldiers were killed in an ambush in the violent state of Guerrero, in a town whose mayor was also found murdered the same day, the defense ministry said Wednesday.

After receiving an anonymous tip that armed men were hiding out at a ranch in the municipality of Coyuca de Catalan, an army patrol went to the site Tuesday night and was attacked by unknown gunmen, the ministry said in a statement.

"Three soldiers were killed. Three more were wounded and evacuated to military medical facilities," it said.

The ambush came on the same day that the mayor of Coyuca de Catalan, Abel Montufar Mendoza, was found dead inside a car in the neighboring city of Ciudad Altamirano, his body riddled with bullets and naked from the waist down.

Montufar was running for a seat in the Guerrero state legislature in Mexico's July 1 general elections.

It is unclear whether there is a link between the two crimes, Guerrero state security spokesman Roberto Alvarez Heredia told Mexican TV network Milenio.

Dozens of candidates have been murdered in Mexico since election season opened in September.

Public safety is one of the biggest issues of the campaign, after Mexico registered a record 25,000 murders last year.

The country is awash in violence linked to its powerful drug cartels. Guerrero, the scene of vicious cartel turf wars, is one of the states hardest hit.

Since the Mexican government deployed the military to fight drug trafficking in 2006, the country has registered more than 200,000 homicides, though the statistics do not track how many were linked to organized crime.

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