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Gangs, terrorists, and trade.

Article Excerpt
While most Americans are familiar with al-Qaida, they're less knowledgeable about a group spreading terror within U.S. inner cities: Mara Salvatrucha. Also known as MS-13, the Maras have 20,000 North American members. Mara cadres have set up in many American cities, creating the beginnings of a national command hierarchy, with some Maras on the East and West coast reporting directly to and paying gang dues to leaders in Central America. As these cadres grow and learn, they become more dangerous, and already they have begun to actively target law enforcement officers. Although the FBI and law enforcement agencies have tried to contain them using anti-racketeering statutes, which allow prosecutors to attack the structures of organized crime, the real problem lies beyond the border.

MS-13 is the product of the vicious Central American civil wars of the 1980s. Thousands fled north, many of them veterans of both sides. Unable to find work because of a lack of education, some of these refugees decided to leverage their combat skills to survive, forming Mara Salvatrucha. As a result of toughened immigration polices, U.S. officials deported MS-13 members to their countries of origin. However, this solution proved facile and politically expedient. After their return home, MS-13 members ruthlessly destroyed the local gangs and took control of huge swathes of Central American cities.

There are 70,000 Maras in Latin America. Like al-Qaida, they operate loose, autonomous cells that form a broad transnational network. Individual cells are surprisingly sophisticated. Some are devoted to intelligence gathering, propaganda, recruitment, and logistics, as well as their more common activities of drug trafficking, extortion, prostitution, and murder. In the cities and provinces they control, the Maras have carved out zones of autonomy, parasite structures within the larger state where they provide a rudimentary system of patronage and protection to the people in return for allegiance and tribute.

Paralyzed by a lack of resources and decades of authoritarianism, neglect, and economic disparity, Central American states have found it difficult to deal with this threat. The Maras are heavily armed with M16s, AK-47s, and military grade explosives. Gang-related violence has risen to pandemic levels. In El Salvador alone, gang-related violence is responsible for 60% of all murders. Many security experts fear that Central America could become like Colombia, with huge areas of the country governed by mini-narcostates. The Peten region of Guatemala has already become just that. It is devoid of government authority, with the economy...

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