The President of South Sudan, Salva Kiir has sacked the Deputy Director General of the General Intelligence Bureau for the country’s National Security Service Lieutenant General Khalid Butrus Bora.
The GIB post is a senior position established to help unify the command of the country’s armed forces under the 2018 peace agreement.
Khalid Butrus was removed from his post in a presidential decree read on state-run South Sudan Broadcasting Corporation (SSBC). No reason was given for the dismissal, and no replacement was immediately named.
The decree cited Section 17(1) of the National Security Service Act, which grants the president authority to appoint and remove security officers, including senior intelligence officials.
Lieutenant General Khalid has played a prominent role in South Sudan’s turbulent political and military landscape.
The officer initially served as deputy commander in the former rebel South Sudan Democratic Movement (SSDM) Cobra Faction, a Murle-led armed group once headed by General David Yau Yau, now the deputy minister of information.
The group emerged from demands for greater regional representation, development, and the creation of an autonomous administration in the Greater Pibor Area.
In 2016, when Yau Yau re-joined the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), Khalid rejected the move and assumed command of the faction, vowing to continue the armed struggle with fighters who remained in the Pibor area.
In 2017, he aligned himself with the rebel National Salvation Front (NAS), led by General Thomas Cirillo.
However, internal divisions within NAS in 2018 led Khalid to form the NAS–Peace Faction.
He later joined the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS) as part of the South Sudan Opposition Alliance (SSOA).
The 2018 peace agreement allowed SSOA members to participate in the Transitional Government of National Unity (RTGoNU), established in 2020, and to take part in security arrangements and the unification of armed forces