National Salvation Front (South Sudan)
The National Salvation Front (NAS) is a South Sudanese militant group lead by Thomas Cirillo which has been fighting against the government of South Sudan since March 2017. Background. The group is the largest still fighting after the end of the South Sudanese Civil War. NAS mainly operates in the Equatoria region of South Sudan. Its goals are the removal of the President of South Sudan, Salva Kiir, from office and the establishment of federalism. On November 25, 2017, Major Gen. Lawrence Amitayo Legge, the Operations Commander for the SPLM-IO Western Mundri Command announced  his resignation of the SPLM-IO army with his officers to join NAS under the leader of Gen. Thomas Cirillo. NAS was not a party to the Revitalized Agreement in South Sudan and thus continues to engage in fighting despite the ceasefire mostly holding in the rest of the country. There was, however, a minor faction of NAS that split from Cirillo's forces and signed the Agreement. On 2 February 2019 NAS soldiers claimed to have repulsed SSPDF from Senema village near border with Democratic Republic of Congo. Etymology. While written in all caps, NAS is not an acronym , instead it is derived from the Arabic word ناس ("nas"), meaning "people." History. The National Salvation Front was founded on March 6, 2017, by Lt. Gen. Thomas Cirillo Swaka, a member of the Bari ethnic group. Cirillo had been the Deputy Chief of Staff of Logistics for the army of South Sudan, the SPLA, but he resigned on February 11, 2017, in response to what he believed was the "tribalization" of the army under the leadership of president Salva Kiir. On March 9, 2017, the SSDM-Cobra Faction under Khalid Butrous merged with NAS. On March 1, 2018, NAS joined  the South Sudan Opposition Alliance (SSOA), a coalition of rebel groups that opposed the government. On August 5, 2018, Julius Tabule Daniel declared himself the interim chairman of NAS. This led to a split in the movement, and Tabule's group declared Khalid Butrous as its leader, becoming known as NAS-KB. NAS-KB signed the R-ARCSS peace deal in September 2018, while the main NAS group under Cirillo continued to fight. Another group called the Equatoria Non-Allied Forces (ENAF) lead by Moses Yanga Yoana allegedly broke away from NAS; it signed a peace deal with the government  in February 2019. On October 23, 2020, Lako Jada Kwajok, a senior NAS official, resigned, citing weak leadership and the lack of a clear vision. He created the Democratic Resistance Movement (DRM) on November 30, 2020, made of former NAS members. On September 24, 2018, NAS and members of the SSOA that did not sign the R-ARCSS formed the South Sudan National Democratic Alliance (SSNDA), lead by Cirillo. Between December 2018 and March 2019, major clashes between the SSPDF (the South Sudanese army) and NAS in Yei River State displaced around 15,000 people. On August 30, 2019 the SSNDA  merged with several other rebel groups to form the South Sudan Opposition Movements Alliance (SSOMA). The SSOMA entered into negotiations in Rome facilitated by the Community of Sant'Egidio, and it signed a Cessation of Hostilities agreement on January 12, 2020. While this declaration initially reduced the violence, NAS and the SSPDF resumed clashes in the summer of 2020. Funding and Equipment. NAS receives some funding by mining gold and taxing gold miners around Lobonok in Central Equatoria state, which is then sold in Uganda. NAS's weapons and ammunition are primarily obtained through ambushing the SSPDF, and the most common  weapons are AK-47s and AKM assault rifles. Timeline. 2020. August 19 – NAS forces ambush a convoy of bodyguards of Vice President James Wani Igga near Lobonok, Central Equatoria State, killing six and wounding two. November 9 – Thomas Cirillo's faction of the SSOMA, which includes the National Salvation Front, recommits to the Cessation of Hostilities agreement during talks in Rome. November 10 – NAS and the SSPDF clash in Lobonok. NAS claims that it was attacked by the SSPDF, and that NAS killed nine SSPDF soldiers and captured several guns while losing two NAS soldiers. The SSPDF claims that it was  attacked by NAS, and that two NAS soldiers and four civilians were killed. This clash causes the SSOMA to pull out of the talks in Rome.