FBI cracks down on gangs of El Salvador

[emad]

The Independent
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
26 February 2005


The FBI has established a special task force to counter the growing menace of an El Salvador-based street gang whose members have spread throughout parts of the US. The move comes as President George Bush has set aside $150m (£78m) and appointed his wife to head an initiative to keep teenage boys from becoming gang members.

The task force was set up to tackle Mara Salvatrucha, commonly referred to as MS-13, whose members have been responsible for more than three dozen killings in the past two years. Its existence was revealed during a conference this week in San Salvador to discuss gang violence.

The task force senior official, FBI veteran Robert Clifford, has said there was no evidence to support rumours that MS-13 was linked to al-Qa'ida and was conspiring to bring terrorists into the US through Mexico.

MS-13 is one of several Latin American gangs that have spread to US cities. However, MS-13 is believed to be the only one that retains close links with the country from where its members originated.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=614897

[stepnw1f]

1. Just As We Over Reach

we invite corruption to our core. Just look at where we are now. Can you imagine how bad things are going to get now that we have agressively become dictators of the World.

[Ernesto]

2. WTF?

Someone kick me! I must be asleep, dreaming this shit!

[Selteri]

3. I only wish it were just a horrible seemingly everlasting nightmare.

But sadly, this si the truth, the FBI apparently isn't busy enough defending the US on the inside.

The old saying goes, we're the watchdogs, but who watches the watchdogs.

[phusion]

4. Confusion?

I read this as the FBI going after gangs in the US who happen to be El Salvador-originated. It doesn't seem to me like they are policing these gangs in El Salvador...

But the posts here seem to indicate the opposite...Is that true?

[daleo]

5. Crackdown on "The Gangs of El Salvadore" by the FBI

Weren't Negroponte's death squads in El Salvadore? And didn't he just become czar of all agencies (including the FBI)? I wonder if there is a connection.

[SpiralHawk]

6. Hey Honduras has its own gangs

including the infamous Mareros. They are wicked bad, trained for hell raising right here in the vast and growing slums of the United States