EL SALVADOR sent more than 4,000 troops into three communities on the outskirts of the capital to arrest gang members on Wednesday as President Nayib Bukele prepared to request another extension of emergency powers to combat crime.

Mr Bukele announced the pre-dawn operation in a video posted on social media. Soldiers and police were sent to surround the densely populated communities of Popotlan, Valle Verde and La Campanera outside San Salvador, the president said.

“We are not going to stop until we capture the last ‘terrorist’ that remains,” Mr Bukele said, using a phrase that typically refers to members of gangs who have been accused of drug trafficking, protection rackets and extortion.

“We won’t allow small remnants to regroup and take away the peace that has cost so much.”

Mr Bukele has used emergency powers granted after a surge in gang violence in March 2022 to wage an all-out offensive against the country’s powerful gangs. More than 72,000 alleged gang members or affiliates have been jailed.

But in March, Amnesty International warned that the country’s authorities have “systematically committed grave human rights violations since a state of emergency and numerous legislative amendments were approved in March 2022.

“This policy has resulted in more than 66,000 detentions, most of them arbitrary; ill-treatment and torture; flagrant violations of due process; enforced disappearances; and the deaths in state custody of at least 132 people who at the time of their deaths had not been found guilty of any crime.”