WESTERN BUREAU — The police yesterday recovered five assault rifles, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and detained five more men as they followed up on Wednesday’s operation in the Montego Bay favela of Canterbury in which three gunmen were shot dead and three cops injured during a nine-hour gunbattle.

Last night, Arthur “Stitch” Martin, the deputy commissioner of police for crime, who is now leading the operation in the north-shore city, vowed that the police will stay in Canterbury — notorious as a hide-out for criminals — until they are satisfied that they have brought in all the illegal guns and have nabbed as many gunmen as possible.

“We are not finished yet,” Martin told the Observer. “We are going to continue with this operation as long as it is necessary, and as long we believe that we have the capacity to carry on to recover more weapons, ammunition and arrest gunmen.”

Throughout the day, the police maintained a cordon around the community of tight alleys and dank streets where concrete nogs, shanties and lean-tos stand cheek-and-jowl with seemingly expensive multi-storeyed homes festooned with satellite dishes. Canterbury is less than two miles east of the city centre of Montego Bay, Jamaica’s largest tourist resort.

Yesterday, people going in or out of the community had to pass police check points, and the constabulary said that it had extended a curfew, that should have ended at eight o’clock last night, for at least another 24 hours.

“We will… continue to ask for extensions until we are certain that we have combed the area properly and we have found the weapons we are looking for and also arrest more of the gunmen,” said Senior Superintendent Ionie Ramsay, who heads the police’s information arm, the Constabulary Communication Network.

Operating mainly from bushy hillsides, the gunmen had, throughout Wednesday, held-off scores of police who initially intended to make an early morning sweep through Canterbury, hoping to pick up wanted men, guns and drugs.

Instead, the police were greeted with heavy fire from M16 and AK47 assault rifles. Three cops were injured.

It was mid-afternoon before the police gained the upper hand and three of the gunmen, identified so far only as “Mad Dog”, “Redman” and “Che”, were killed.

In yesterday’s follow-up, the police said four M16s and an AK47 were found, hidden in pit latrines and, in one case, a house.

Five more men were held, in addition to the 19 men and one woman who were detained on Wednesday. It was not immediately clear whether any of those detained yesterday will be charged for the guns and ammunition or the small amount of marijuana also seized by the police.

Meantime, the police, often the butt of public criticism for their handling of operations which turn violent, were being commended yesterday.

The rights group Jamaicans for Justice is usually among the constabulary’s sternest critics. But yesterday on the HOT 102 show, The Breakfast Club, its executive director contrasted the “professionalism” of the Canterbury operation with “what happened in Tivoli Gardens” in July 2001 when 27 persons — including a policeman and a soldier — were killed over a weekend in the West Kingston community when the police claimed to have come under fire in circumstances similar to those at Canterbury.

The national security minister, Peter Phillips, also commended the police “for the professional manner and care exercised in preventing civilian casualties” during the operation.

What happened in Canterbury, Phillips claimed, demonstrated “the growing efficiency of law enforcement” agencies in Jamaica.

The ruling People’s National Party also heaped praise on the “courageous men and women” of the security forces and used the Canterbury incident to draw attention to violence associated with the drug trade and the growing impact of organised crime.

“Of particular concern is the emergence of the so-called ‘one-order’ philosophy in many of these communities which are being overtaken by the narco-terrorists and criminal gunmen,” said the PNP in a statement by its deputy general-secretary, Colin Campbell. “The police will have to continue a relentless fight to root out this idea and make the communities safe for all citizens.”