“This is an act that should be considered as a terrorist act,” Zapata said.

Noboa met with his security Cabinet and afterwards the head of the Armed Forces Joint Command said the attacks were the gangs’ reactions to the government moves against them.

The government has not said how many attacks have taken place since authorities announced that Los Choneros gang leader Adolfo Macías, alias “Fito,” was discovered missing from his cell in a low-security prison on Sunday. He was scheduled to be transferred to a maximum security facility that day.

Authorities also have not said who is thought to be behind the attacks, which included an explosion near the house of the president of the National Justice Court and the Monday night kidnappings of four police officers, or whether they think the actions were coordinated.

Police said one officer was abducted in the capital, Quito, and three in Quevedo city.

Los Choneros is one of the Ecuadorian gangs that authorities consider responsible for a spike in violence, much of it tied to drug trafficking, which reached a new level last year with the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio. The gang has links with Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, according to authorities.

Macías’ whereabouts are unknown. Prosecutors opened an investigation and charged two guards in connection with his alleged escape, but neither the police, the corrections system, nor the federal government confirmed whether the prisoner fled the facility or might be hiding in it.

In February 2013, he escaped from a maximum security facility but was recaptured weeks later.

On Monday, Noboa decreed a national state of emergency for 60 days, allowing the authorities to suspend rights and mobilise the military in places like prisons. The government also imposed a curfew from 11pm to 5am.

Noboa said in a message on Instagram that he wouldn’t stop until he “brings back peace to all Ecuadorians,” and that his government had decided to confront crime. The wave of attacks began a few hours after Noboa’s announcement.

States of emergency were widely used by Noboa’s predecessor, Guillermo Lasso, as a way to confront the wave of violence that has affected the country.

Macías, who was convicted of drug trafficking, murder and organised crime, was serving a 34-year sentence in La Regional prison in the port of Guayaquil.

Experts and authorities have acknowledged that gang members practically rule from inside the prisons, and Macías was believed to have continued controlling his group from within the detention facility.