Mexico City 8 Jan (ANA) - A US consular official was shot while driving out of a parking garage in Guadalajara, Mexico, on Friday a little after 6 p.m. local time. The official, identified as Christopher Ashcraft, 31, a foreign-service officer on his first posting with the US State Department, was struck on the upper right side of his chest but is in stable condition, according to Mexican authorities. Ashcraft works as a vice consul, a US government source told AFP. "According to the four videos, it was a direct attack," Jalisco state attorney general Eduard Almaguer Ramirez said. Almaguer also told AFP that Ashcraft interviewed visa applicants at the embassy in the city. The US consulate in the city, which is Mexico's second largest, released footage of the shooting as well as photos of the assailant. No motive for the attack has been established. One clip of security-camera footage posted by the consulate on its Facebook page shows Ashcraft getting a ticket from a parking-garage machine while dressed in gym attire, then walking to his car with the suspected shooter not far behind him. Another clip shows the suspect loitering by the street, waiting until Ashcraft's vehicle, a black Honda Fit, exits the parking garage, then taking a gun from his pocket and firing a single shot through the windshield.(ANA)

FA/ANA/8 January 2017-----