Bukele Sends 2,000-Plus Troops Into Haiti, and Experts See a Quagmire

Bukele's troops are digging in near the US embassy in Port-au-Prince, a sign that a quick exit is not on the table. The Salvadoran president, who has spent nearly five years jailing gang members at home, shifted his public messaging within days: what began as a rescue operation for four abducted Salvadorans became a promise to fight what he called the wicked. Writing in Haitian Creole, he invoked revolutionary leader Jean-Jacques Dessalines and vowed to help Haitians reclaim their country.

The trigger was the 18 October disappearance of four Salvadorans Bukele described as aviation technicians, who vanished after shopping in a gang-run area north-east of Port-au-Prince's airport. He demanded their release and warned the kidnappers that El Salvador had already destroyed its own gangs. Then his posts turned broader, with the president insisting God would grant victory. Analysts read that shift as evidence his aims now go beyond a rescue, which, given the brutality of Haiti's gangs, may have always been a long shot.

There is genuine appetite for a strongman in Haiti, where armed groups have controlled much of the capital since President Jovenel Moïse was murdered in 2021 and more than 1.5 million people have fled their homes. Vanda Felbab-Brown of the Brookings Institution said conditions are so dire that people are desperate for anyone who will stop the desperation. Pro-Bukele accounts with huge followings have cheered the deployment online, though protests against the troops have also been reported.

Part of the calculation looks political. Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America said Bukele's strategy is murky but his political strategy is clear: polish his crime-fighting brand before El Salvador's February presidential election and cement his status as the region's rightwing security hero. Felbab-Brown noted El Salvador faces real economic headwinds as Bukele seeks to extend his rule, making a foreign win useful.

The battlefield Bukele just stepped onto is chaotic. Vigilante mobs armed with guns and machetes, Haiti's police and army, mercenaries working for Erik Prince's Vectus Global and a UN-backed Gang Suppression Force led by a Mongolian general are all already fighting the gangs, with limited success. Bukele's soldiers answer to none of them. Romain Le Cour of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime called it an orchestra without a conductor.

The risks run high. Le Cour said drones, attack helicopters and heavy weapons have transformed the confrontation in days, trapping residents between criminal groups and intensive operations and displacing thousands. Felbab-Brown warned Salvadoran forces could end up in ferocious street-by-street fighting in sprawling slums, and questioned whether they would spare civilians given the indiscriminate nature of Bukele's mass incarceration at home. Bill O'Neill, the UN's human rights expert on Haiti, put it bluntly: it could get very ugly and very dangerous.