UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States announced Thursday that it is seeking U.N. authorization for a new “Gang Suppression Force” to help tackle the escalating violence in Haiti, where armed groups are expanding their brutal activities from the capital into the countryside.

Acting U.S. Ambassador Dorothy Shea made the announcement at a U.N. Security Council meeting, but it was unclear how it would differ from the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support force now deployed in the violence-torn Caribbean nation trying to help police curb gang violence.

Shea thanked Kenya for answering Haiti’s call “at a critical moment” and leading a multinational force for more than a year, saying without it “the gangs would have been even more emboldened in their ambitions and brazen atrocities against

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