BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - Three masked men armed with machine guns killed 10 people in a restaurant in the southern Slovak city of Dunajska Streda late on Thursday, and officials did not discount possible links with organised crime. According to a police statement on Friday, the three men dressed in overalls and black body armour vests entered the restaurant, shouting: "This is the police, everybody get on the ground". Then they opened fire. Nine people in the restaurant, described by the police only as "young men", were shot dead on the spot, and another man died later on Thursday in hospital, the statement said. "At this stage, we can neither confirm, nor exclude the possibility that the shooting is linked with organised crime," Interior Ministry spokesman Martin Tóth told Reuters. Tóth said the police were still trying to identify the victims and investigate their backgrounds. "An intensive investigation is under way and we will inform you on the first results, probably on Monday," he added. Murders and fatal bombings have plagued Slovakia since the mid-1990s. Police have said many result from turf wars between criminal gangs from Slovakia, Ukraine, Yugoslavia and Russia. In 1997, at least 12 people were killed and 16 injured in bomb attacks in various Slovak towns. Five were killed and four injured in 1996. Police figures for 1998 have not yet been released. Interior Minister Ladislav Pittner, who came into office after September‘s general elections, has pledged to tackle mushrooming violent crime. The new government of Premier Mikuláš Dzurinda says the proliferation of violent crime is a result of corruption and ties between organised crime and state authorities.