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.

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 for Mexico's July 1 general elections have been murdered since September.

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

Mexico 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.