[5] However, these changes in power were fought between networks of rival landowners (coffee barons) and politicians under their patronage rather than between official military and government forces.

[5] During the Great Depression, coffee prices fell, the wages of indigenous Salvadoran workers were cut and unemployment was widespread.

On 2 March 1944, a Palm Sunday, the landowners, intellectuals, students and also some sections of the Salvadoran armed forces rebelled.

Nevertheless, the amount of American military aid purchased by El Salvador in the 1950s was small; just enough in munitions and light arms to suppress internal conflict such as communist activity.

They then underwent further training on a regular basis and could be called to join active provincial patrols (patrullas cantonalles).

Honduras' economy was struggling and the Honduran Government started to deport the Salvadorans who they saw as illegal immigrants.

[14][15][16] In June 1969, El Salvador played three games against Honduras in the qualifying rounds of the World Cup.

[5]: 64  Then, on 26 June 1969, El Salvador won a play-off game 3 goals to 2 against Haiti, taking a place in the cup finals.

At this time, the Salvadoran forces included approximately 8,000 infantrymen with rifles, machine guns, mortars and bazookas, 105 mm cannons and a few armoured personnel carriers.

[16][18][19] As Salvadoran troops approached Tegucigalpa, their supply lines failed, they became exhausted and were slowed by heavy rainfall, and their morale fell.

The Salvadoran armed forces fought the Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional (FMLN), a coalition of insurgent guerrilla groups.

The war began when a reformist government was suppressed by hard line military elements and by landowners.

[20] Between 1980 and 1983, the Salvadoran armed forces were driven out of territory controlled by large FMLN groups in rural areas.

[21] In late 1981, soldiers of the national armed forces' Atlácatl Battalion, a rapid response troop, killed 900 civilians at El Mozote.

Army soldiers murdered six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter at the Central American University.

[10] The Ministry of Defense handed the role of internal security to a new body, the National Police Force.

[5] During the civil war, military and right wing paramilitary death squads used exemplary violence with murder and mutilation, massacre and forced displacement to gain control of the populace.

Spain found jurisdiction in the matter and indicted twenty retired soldiers who were officers at the time of the killings.

In 2016, a new armed force was raised in El Salvador with the remit of stopping criminal gangs (especially MS-13) and narcotrafficking.

A day later, Congress approved a state of emergency that gives legal coverage to arrest any citizen suspected to be a gang member even with no proof.

The Directorate of Penal Centers began to erase the graffiti that the gangs use to mark the territory in which they operate.

It is the duty of the armed forces to defend national territory and sovereignty; maintain public peace, tranquillity, and security; and to support democracy.

Article 212 describes the armed forces as a 'fundamental institution for national security, of a permanent character, apolitical, obedient to established civilian authority, and non-deliberative".

It also charges the military with enforcing the no-reelection provision of the country's president; with guaranteeing universal suffrage, human rights;and with working with the executive branch of government in promoting national development[34][35] The Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces is the president.

The tactical units include detachments, training centers and forces of the army at the battalion level.