Ten killed in latest gang violence in El Salvador

By Nelson Renteria SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) - Ten suspected gang members were killed in eastern El Salvador in two incidents apparently perpetrated by other gang members, police said on Sunday, the latest in a surge of violence in the Central American country. The killings occurred late on Saturday night in two different rural towns in Usulutan province, about 60 miles (100 km) east of San Salvador. Police said the dead were members of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang. Police said the authorities were not involved in the massacres and they were investigating whether the perpetrators were members of the same gang or a rival gang. Violence in El Salvador has spiked in the past year, after a 2012 truce between the Mara Salvatrucha and the rival Barrio 18 gang fell apart. In the first incident, men dressed in black and in military camouflage burst into a house as if in a police operation, forced seven suspected gang members outside and killed them. In the second case, in a different village, men dressed in black dragged three suspected gang members out of a house and killed them. (Reporting by Nelson Renteria; Writing by Joanna Zuckerman Bernstein; Editing by Tom Heneghan)