PHOENIX – Federal police have arrested two men who may be connected with the fatal shooting of a U.S. Border Patrol agent just north of the Mexico-Arizona border, a Mexican law enforcement official said Thursday.

The official said it was unclear if there was strong evidence linking the men to the shooting of Agent Nicholas Ivie.

Ivie and two other agents were fired upon Tuesday in a rugged hilly area about five miles north of the border near Bisbee, Ariz., as they responded to an alarm that was triggered on one of the sensors that the government has installed along the border.

The wounded agent was shot in the ankle and buttocks and released from the hospital after undergoing surgery. The third agent wasn’t injured.

Brenda Nath, an FBI spokeswoman in Arizona, and Border Patrol officials in Arizona declined to comment on the detention of the two men in Mexico.

Lydia Antonio, a spokeswoman for the Mexican Embassy in Washington, confirmed the two detentions, but declined to say what prompted them and what made authorities suspect the two might be involved in the shooting.