publish time

01/06/2024

author name Arab Times

publish time

01/06/2024

El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele delivers his inaugural address after being sworn-in at Plaza Barrios in San Salvador, El Salvador, June 1, 2019. (AP)

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador, June 1, (AP): El Salvador said authorities have broken up a plot to plant bombs around the country to coincide with President Nayib Bukele’s inauguration on Saturday.
The country’s National Police said the plot involved "veterans” of the country’s 1980-1992 civil war, an apparent reference to former leftist guerillas.
Police posted photos of small cylinders of explosives with fuses and sacks of ammonium nitrate on the force’s social media accounts. It said the explosives had been seized in raids, and that the plot supposedly was going to target gasoline stations, supermarkets and government buildings.
It said some of the explosives were found in a raid on a former rebel stronghold, Guazapa, on the outskirts of San Salvador, the capital.
Police blamed a shadowy force it called the "Salvadoran Insurrection Brigade” for the plot, and former congressman José Santos Melara of the leftist FMLN party - formed by former guerrillas - had been detained and was "the one who financed these plans.”
Melara is the leader of the national association of FMLN Veterans of the war. At least seven other suspects were also detained.
The Block of Popular Resistance and Rebellion - known as the BPR for its initials in Spanish - issued a statement saying Melara’s arrest "is arbitrary and is an act of political persecution.”