© Juan CarlosGovernment officers during a gang sweep in San Salvador, El Salvador, this year.
Gangs such as MS-13 and Barrio 18 prey on their own neighborhoods in a violent, chaotic model spreading through the region
The Congress of El Salvador agreed in April to extend the authority of jailers to keep gang leaders in solitary confinement.
Over the next five days, the two reigning street gangs killed more than 100 people.With the highest homicide rate of all countries in the world, El Salvador is a nation held hostage.
Law-enforcement officials estimate that one gang,
MS-13, operates an extortion racket with little pressure from authorities in 248 of the 262 of the country's municipalities. It battles for neighborhood control with another gang, Barrio 18, which runs its own protection scheme in nearly as many regions.
Politicians must ask permission of gangs to hold rallies or canvass in many neighborhoods, law-enforcement officials and prosecutors said. In San Salvador, the nation's capital, gangs control the local distribution of consumer products, experts said, including diapers and
Coca-Cola . They extort commuters, call-center employees, and restaurant and store owners. In the rural east, gangs threaten to burn sugar plantations unless farmers pay up.
Comment: The Iranian's have a point, the American Empire does bear striking similarities to the biblical Babylon - and for more on that, check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Babylon, Ancient Rome and the American Empire
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