El Salvador calls in ‘X killstreak’ on Haitian gang HQ (VIDEO)
Salvadoran forces destroyed the alleged headquarters of Haiti’s largest criminal gang, 400 Mawozo, after a social media user shared its location with President Nayib Bukele.
The compound, allegedly built on the eastern outskirts of Port-au-Prince, was partially destroyed by a fleet of Salvadoran light attack helicopters. Bukele posted a video of the attack on X, calling the gang members "cowards" for fleeing without fighting.
"Give us the exact address, and we'll destroy it," Bukele responded in Haitian Creole.
The strike came after the original X user posted a picture of the gang's palatial compound, which she alleged belonged to the 400 Mawozo. The post was deleted over the weekend, but multiple users had shared GPS coordinates with Bukele.
Haitian police and private security contractors stormed the compound after the rocket barrage. Bukele has vowed to eradicate the gangs if they refuse to return four Salvadoran hostages, who were kidnapped by a smaller gang member, Chen Mechan.
El Salvador's military deployment
Bukele deployed around 2,500 troops to Haiti late last month, after four Salvadoran military aircraft technicians were kidnapped while assisting the UN-authorized Gang Suppression Force (GSF) mission. The hostages have not yet been returned.
Bukele has claimed that El Salvador has "no interest in coming to dominate the Haitian people, nor in laying hands on Haiti's wealth," but has promised to wage war against the "Satanic" gangs until the captives are handed over.
Joseph initially vowed to drive the Salvadoran troops out of Haiti, but has since requested mediation from UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. Haitian Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime will reportedly travel to El Salvador next week to meet with Bukele's government.
Crowdsourced airstrikes
Bukele may be the first national leader to solicit targeting data from social media, but the concept of crowdsourced airstrikes is not a new one. During the Syrian Civil War in 2016, a group of 4chan users geolocated videos posted by Islamic State fighters and fed their locations to a Russian military blogger.
At least one jihadist training camp was subsequently destroyed by Russian airstrikes, although it remains unclear whether the blogger supplied the coordinates to the Russian Defense Ministry. Both sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict have also used information gleaned from social media videos to locate and strike military deployment points.
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