Police on Friday raided the El Salvador offices of the Panama-based law firm at the heart of the "Panama Papers" scandal that has revealed how the wealthy in many countries stashed their riches offshore.

The swoop on the San Salvador offices of Mossack Fonseca netted "a good amount of computer equipment," El Salvador's state prosecutor's office said on its Twitter account.

The 35-year-old Honduran farmer shows the scar on his forehead where he says a Mexican migration officer fired a stun gun when he tried to escape a major dragnet.

While Wilmart avoided deportation, a rising number of undocumented Central American migrants are being rounded up in a crackdown launched a year ago following a surge of unaccompanied children reaching the United States.

Clad in bullet-proof vests and balaclavas, elite squads of soldiers and police are preparing to wage a guerrilla-style war on El Salvador's gangs, trying to fight a surge in violence that experts warn may only intensify.

El Salvador had its bloodiest month in a decade in March, as gang members armed with high-caliber assault rifles repeatedly attacked police stations and army posts.

The United States upheld Wednesday the deportation order of a former Salvadoran defense minister accused of grave human rights violations, including torture and extrajudicial killings, during the Central American country's civil war.

Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova was defense minister during the 1980-1992 war pitting a U.S.-backed government against leftist rebels, which left some 75,000 dead and another 7,000 missing.

The United States will allow some Central American children to apply for refugee status from their home countries, as Washington seeks to stem a large, clandestine influx of minors, Vice President Joe Biden said Friday.

The program, which begins in early December, only applies to children from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras with at least one parent who is a legal resident of the United States.

A powerful 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Central America late Monday, killing at least one person and prompting a brief tsunami warning.

Electricity was cut off in parts of El Salvador and walls crumbled, but there were no reports of widespread damage.

El Salvador police rounded up 140 suspected gang members Friday in a broad sweep encompassing several communities across the country, which has one of the highest murder rates in the world.

The suspects were arrested in connection to a range of crimes including murder, extortion, robbery and rape, a statement from the attorney general's office said. 

The Salvadoran migrant was trying to skirt new police patrols in southern Mexico when a band of criminals shot him in the neck.

With Mexico cracking down on a tide of illegal crossings at its southern border with Guatemala, Central American migrants like Albert have to take new, and in his case riskier, routes to hide on their trek to the United States.

El Salvador's powerful gangs on Friday announced the start of a second phase to a peace process that began in 2012, asking the government to help facilitate talks to end violent clashes between the groups.

Israel expressed "deep disappointment" Wednesday after Chile, El Salvador and Peru recalled their ambassadors over its military campaign in Gaza, saying they are encouraging Hamas in its attacks on the Jewish state.

On Tuesday, El Salvador's foreign ministry recalled its envoy for urgent consultations, speaking of what it called "indiscriminate" Israeli bombing of Gaza.