SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The president of the Dominican Republic said Tuesday that his government is collaborating with El Salvador’s president and providing him with logistics and intelligence as some 2,500 troops from the Central American country battle violent gangs in Haiti.
Dominican President Luis Abinader spoke as the operations of the recently deployed Salvadoran troops to Haiti draw scrutiny because they are largely operating outside the framework of a U.N.-backed, multinational gang suppression force.
Abinader called on the U.N.-backed force to coordinate its actions with El Salvador’s troops to “decisively support the Salvadoran military and the attitude of President Bukele.”
Igor Rugwiza, spokesperson for the gang suppression force, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that it is coordinating closely with Haitian authorities and relevant international partners “in support of shared security objectives.”
“The (force) considers effective coordination and deconfliction among all security actors operating in Haiti to be essential to achieving sustainable security outcomes,” he said in a statement.
Rugwiza added that any activity undertaken by the force “is conducted in accordance with its mandate, established command and control arrangements, the rules of engagement, and applicable human rights law obligations.”
Haitian Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé thanked Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Tuesday for his support and commitment in repelling gangs, saying that the collaboration would continue.
“I salute the commitment of the Salvadoran forces in the fight against gangs,” he wrote on X, adding that the contributions of the gang suppression force, Haiti's police and soldiers and international partners “allow us to strengthen operations on the ground, regain control of the territory and restore state authority.”
Bukele recently celebrated an attack carried out by Haitian police and Salvadoran troops that destroyed the home of Wilson Joseph, best known as Lanmò San Jou and leader of the 400 Mawozo gang. He was not killed in Sunday’s attack.
“We kept our promise,” Bukele wrote on X Tuesday, referring to the attack on the home and the gang’s headquarters. “Most of them ran away without even trying to fight. What cowards!”
Abinader pledged to keep helping Bukele and noted that El Salvador’s defense minister speaks almost daily with his counterpart in the Dominican Republic. Meanwhile, Fils-Aimé is scheduled to meet with El Salvador’s government next week in a visit to the Central American nation to discuss the future of Salvadoran troops in Haiti.
A spokesperson for Abinader declined to provide details on the type of assistance that the Dominican Republic has provided to El Salvador.
Amnesty International has called on Bukele and Haiti’s prime minister to ensure that all operations conducted by Salvadoran troops comply with international human rights law.
“Both governments must make public the agreement governing the deployment and explain how they oversee the deployed forces, what rules govern the use of force, to whom they are accountable, and how people can report possible violations without fear of reprisals,” Ana Piquer, Amnesty International’s Americas director, said Monday.
The Dominican Republic shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, and Abinader has pledged to keep monitoring the shared border via drones, soldiers and armored vehicles and respond to any actions that might threaten the stability of his country.
El Salvador deployed the troops after four aviation technicians were attacked Oct. 18 deep in gang-controlled territory. They remain missing.
Sophie Rutenbar, senior expert at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, said Tuesday during a virtual conference that Haiti is “extremely crowded” with security forces.
“We don’t know very much about the coordination mechanisms right now,” she said. “It’s not a great situation.”
Haitian police and soldiers are fighting gangs alongside the gang suppression force and the private security firm founded by former U.S. Navy SEAL and Blackwater founder Erik Prince. The Salvadoran troops are now on the ground as well.
“These security forces are coming from such different points of view,” she said. “It’s extremely complex.”
She said that Haitian sentiment is “largely positive” toward Salvadoran troops in Haiti.
“It’s very appealing to have someone come in and save you after things have been bad for so long,” she said.
But experts note that civilians have been killed in attacks targeting gangs and question how long El Salvador can keep up its current pace.
“What they’re doing is a very expensive proposition,” she said, noting that if El Salvador's troops were to work with the gang suppression force, they would benefit from additional resources.
“Bukele is being hailed as a savior right now,” she said. “Reality will probably hit at some point. It’s a challenging thing what they’re doing.”
Wolf Pamphile, founder and CEO of Haiti Policy House, a U.S.-based think tank, said during Tuesday’s conference that 400 Mawozo remains the biggest challenge to Haiti’s government and the gang suppression force.
He said that as promising as El Salvador’s actions in Haiti seem to be, he believes the Central American troops may have to work with the U.N.-backed force in the long term.
“It would have been better if the Haitian government steered Salvadoran soldiers within a structure that already exists,” he said. “It’s hard to pull that back.”
Associated Press reporter Martín Adames in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, contributed.
A soldier from El Salvador stands guard as a convoy of armored vehicles carrying military personnel and Equipment arrives in the Tabarre neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Saturday, Oct. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House is set to vote Tuesday on whether to advance an effort to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has accused lawmakers of undermining American troops in war zones by targeting him over mere “policy disagreements."
The procedural vote will either block the impeachment resolution or set up a final vote Wednesday. With Democratic leadership backing the effort brought by GOP Rep. Thomas Massie, the outcome will likely hinge on whether Republican lawmakers break ranks after their sweeping losses in the midterm elections.
Hegseth dug in for a congressional fight in his first news conference in months on Tuesday, portraying Massie as a rogue lawmaker and arguing that he had committed none of the high crimes required in the Constitution for his removal. He framed the effort as an indictment against the nation’s service members and their successes while undermining American forces “in real time.”
“This is not patriotism,” Hegseth said. “This is sabotage.”
Massie's resolution includes eight counts of impeachment. It largely focuses on the war in Iran but also includes references to Hegseth's role in carrying out military actions in Yemen and Venezuela.
Massie, a Kentucky Republican leaving Congress in January after losing his primary to a Trump-backed opponent, says Hegseth has “knowingly executed and implemented unlawful orders."
Tuesday morning, Hegseth gave a defiant and politicized defense of his stewardship of the U.S. military in his first news conference at the Pentagon in six months. He chose to hit back at the rising bipartisan anger over battlefield strategy while offering few details about intermittent operations against Iran or fatal strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in Latin America.
President Donald Trump praised Hegseth’s performance at the briefing in a social media post, while Vice President JD Vance said in his own post that the impeachment effort is “a ridiculous show that stands in for actual policymaking.”
Hegseth said the impeachment resolution “tells our enemies — Iran, the cartels, every adversary watching — the United States will actually punish its own warriors and its own civilian leadership for successfully executing lawful military operations.”
Massie filed the resolution in the House on Monday, giving Republican leaders two days to bring it to a vote. Tuesday's vote is a procedural attempt to stop the impeachment push outright by sending the matter back to committee.
If the impeachment resolution advances, it would set the stage for a dramatic vote Wednesday on whether to impeach a key Trump Cabinet member following sweeping losses for Republicans in last week's midterm elections, which many at least partly blamed on the Iran conflict and its economic impact. If the resolution were to pass the House, it would ultimately be sent to the Senate, where a two-thirds vote would be needed for Hegseth's removal.
“The law requires our military to withdraw from hostilities within 60 days if Congress does not authorize the activity,” Massie wrote on social media Tuesday. The Iran war "has been underway for 256 days. Congress has not authorized it. Hegseth is breaking the law."
Massie’s resolution has eight counts of impeachment that focus on U.S. military actions or changes on Hegseth’s watch. They include reported reductions in staff and resources at a Pentagon office focused on mitigating civilian harm, which preceded a U.S. missile striking an Iranian primary school during the war, killing up to 168 people.
Another article of impeachment focuses on Hegseth’s attempt to punish Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, a retired Navy pilot, for participating in a video that called on troops to resist unlawful orders. Massie also called out U.S. military strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in Latin America and the failure to rescue survivors, which Massie argued will encourage adversaries to treat American forces the same way.
What constitutes “high crimes and misdemeanors” is not spelled out in the Constitution, leaving it to lawmakers to decide what are impeachable acts.
Hegseth said Massie’s concerns are not impeachable, calling them “policy disagreements, not high crimes, not misdemeanors, not treason, not bribery, not the kinds of offenses the founders intended when they wrote the impeachment clause.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson called it a “political gambit for attention” and predicted that Republicans would defeat it “one way or the other.”
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is on the cusp of becoming the nation’s first Black House speaker, said Monday that he is a “hard yes” on the resolution. He called Hegseth the “architect” of the war in Iran.
In the Senate, meanwhile, next steps were uncertain if the impeachment resolution cleared the House.
Outgoing GOP Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa said Tuesday that she wants to ensure “that the right information is flowing from the Pentagon to the president.”
“Is he being truthful in the way the war is going?” Ernst said of Hegseth.
Hegseth cast Massie's resolution in historic terms, arguing that no defense secretary has been impeached in the nation's 250-year history “for carrying out lawful military operations.”
But more recently, a Cabinet official in President Joe Biden's administration, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, was impeached by House Republicans over his handling of the U.S.-Mexico border. But the Senate dismissed all impeachment charges, shutting down his trial before arguments even began.
Mayorkas, who did not appear to testify before the impeachment proceedings, put the border crisis squarely on Congress for failing to update immigration laws during a time of global migration. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had said then, in April 2024, that House Republicans’ charges failed to meet “the high standard of high crimes and misdemeanors” and could set a dangerous precedent.
Republican Rep. Nick LaLota, who voted to impeach Mayorkas, said he didn't believe Hegseth had committed any impeachable offense.
“Impeachment has been watered down,” LaLota said.
Before Mayorkas, no sitting Cabinet secretary had ever been impeached. It was nearly 150 years ago that the House voted to impeach President Ulysses S. Grant’s war secretary, William Belknap, over a kickback scheme in government contracts. He resigned before the vote.
Trump has backed Hegseth in the wake of Massie's impeachment resolution, pointing to the U.S. military raid to capture then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January as well as operations against Iran that he asserts have “obliterated” its navy and air force.
“Pete Hegseth gets an “A” PLUS, PLUS, PLUS for his defense against a disgruntled, angry, defeated, former Congressman, Thomas Massie, a TOTAL LOSER!” Trump wrote Tuesday on Truth Social.
Iran, however, has been able to keep striking U.S. military bases in the Middle East and has disrupted shipping in the Strait of Hormuz during the more than 8-month-old conflict, driving up global oil prices.
Associated Press writer Steve Peoples in New York and Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report.
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., speaks outside of the Capitol about articles of impeachment he introduced against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Monday, Nov. 9, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert)
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., speaks outside of the Capitol about articles of impeachment he introduced against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Monday, Nov. 9, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert)
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks during a press conference at the Pentagon in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks during a press conference at the Pentagon in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks during a press conference at the Pentagon in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks during a press conference at the Pentagon in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks during a press conference at the Pentagon in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)
FILE - Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks at an event for Anduril Industries, Inc., at Sparrows Point Shipyard, Oct. 6, 2026, in Sparrows Point, Md. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
FILE - Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth waits to welcome Britain's Defense Secretary Wes Streeting to the Pentagon during an arrival ceremony, Thursday, Oct 15, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)
