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MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a senior police officer in the Mexican resort of Cancun on Monday night, blowing his head open in the latest grisly assassination to hit the country.

Police officials in Cancun said local police chief of staff Wilfrido Flores, 56, and his bodyguard were shot dead in their car in a busy avenue in the Caribbean resort, one of Mexico's biggest tourist pulls, just before midnight.

However they played down links to a spate of similar killings in cities like Acapulco and Tijuana in a brutal war among drugs cartels and security forces.

"They were fired at half an hour after leaving the office. We don't know how many or who they were. (Flores) had 15 bullet wounds, mainly in his head and neck. A lot of his face was destroyed," said police spokesman Oscar Meza.

"It surprised us. We can't see a motive. He works in an office planning public security. He's not on operations and has nothing to do with investigating drug cartels," he said.

Last weekend alone, kidnappers killed four policemen in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero -- gagging and shooting three and beheading another -- and seven civilian murders were reported.

Last week, police in Tijuana said they had found the severed heads of three police officers and a fourth man.

Drug violence and attacks on police have risen in the run-up to the July 2 election, which has leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and conservative Felipe Calderon in a close race for the presidency.

"Of course, they are not creating any problem for the election," President
Vicente Fox's spokesman Ruben Aguilar said.

The violence flared up after Fox launched a war on drug cartels early last year.

Police killings are rarer in Cancun, although the resort has seen a handful of gory civilian murders in recent months. Flores was a former army colonel.