By Col. Fernando Menjivar Mora
Since 1992, El Salvador (see Figure 1) (1) has battled a growing threat from organized crime, especially from the gang Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13). MS-13 is the biggest gang in the country yet also has a transnational nature. It is labeled by the U.S. government as a terrorist group and a Transnational Crime Organization (TCO) (2). Government adoption of various internal security policies and strategies has had little effect. Instead, MS-13 has been growing in pow...
