Monterrey City Center, Monterrey, Mexico. (Wikipedia Commons)

(CNSNews.com) - The U.S. State Department has declared that Monterrey, Mexico is now off limits to the minor children of U.S. government workers because of a recent shooting near an American school in that city and the “high incidence of kidnapping” there.

Monterrey is Mexico’s second largest city and is located about 150 miles south of the Texas-Mexico border in the state of Nuevo Leon.

This is the first time the State Department has ever prohibited U.S. government workers from having their dependent children with them when they serve in an official capacity in a Mexican city, Brian Quigley, a spokesman for the U.S. Consulate General in Monterrey, Mexico, told CNSNews.com.

"That's correct, it is," he said. "The official term as of Sept. 10, the U.S. Consulate General in Monterrey has become a partially unaccompanied post. That's the official term for it. What that means is that no minor family member of a U.S. government worker is allowed to be here at post."

The travel warning, posted on the State Department’s Web site on Sept. 10, cites as one reason for the ban on allowing U.S. government employees to bring their minor children to the city an Aug. 20 incident that took place in front of the American Foundation School there.

In this incident, according to the office of the attorney general of Nuevo Leon, members of the Los Zetas criminal gang attacked security personnel from the Mexican bottling company FEMSA. Two of the security personnel were shot to death and four others were kidnapped.

A statement from FEMSA, released in Spanish, said its four kidnapped security officers were later released after the kidnappers realized they were not members of a rival gang. The FEMSA security officers routinely patrolled the American Foundation School because it is attended by the children of FEMSA employees and shareholders.  

The U.S. Consulate in Monterrey responded to the shooting by saying Americans were not targets of the attack.

“An investigation is continuing into the details, but at this point it appears that it was an attempted kidnapping targeting the relatives of a local business executive,” the Aug. 22 U.S. Consulate statement said.

“While it does not appear that U.S. families were targeted, the sharp increase in kidnapping incidents in the Monterrey area, and this event in particular, present a very high risk to the families of U.S. citizens who might become incidental victims,” the statement said. “It is incumbent on all of us to take measures to reduce exposure to risk and enhance personal security.”

The U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Carlos Pascual, urged in the statement that U.S. personnel should “keep their children at home” while the security situation was assessed.

On Aug. 27, the State Department announced it was advising U.S. government personnel working at the Consulate in the city to remove their children from lMonterrey because of security concerns and as of Sept. 10 minor dependents of U.S.-government employees would not be permitted in the city.

“Based upon a security review in Monterrey following the shooting on August 20, 2010, in front of the American Foundation School in Monterrey and the high incidence of kidnappings in the Monterrey area, U.S. government personnel from the Consulate General have been advised that the immediate, practical and reliable way to reduce the security risks for all children is to remove them from Monterrey,” reads the warning from the State Department.

“As of September 10, 2010, the Consulate General in Monterrey is a partially unaccompanied post, meaning no minor dependents of U.S. government employees are permitted to remain in the city,” the warning states.

FEMSA, however, downplayed the kidnapping theory and attributed the violence to the general insecurity in Monterrey.

The Aug. 24 statement issued by the office of the Nuevo Leon attorney general said it was a matter of mistaken identity and that the gang members “apologized” when they realized the men were not members of a rival gang.

“A criminal group that is clearly identified as Los Zetas thought the guards who were there were their enemy, and confronted them – unfortunately, this took place outside a school that had nothing to do with the event,” the statement, issued in Spanish, said.

(Edwin Mora contributed to this report.)