{"id":369956,"date":"2026-03-28T14:59:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T14:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/369956\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T14:59:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T14:59:09","slug":"defence-forces-conducts-first-strategic-reach-operation-in-lebanon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/369956\/","title":{"rendered":"Defence Forces conducts first strategic reach operation in Lebanon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Defence Forces has conducted its first personnel rotation in a conflict zone using new \u201cstrategic reach\u201d capability.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, the Defence Forces confirmed it carried out an operation to transport key battalion personnel to United Nations Post 2-45 in Lebanon, known as Camp Shamrock, and to return communications specialists who had been performing critical maintenance to communication systems and infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>It said the operation occurred in a \u201cvolatile region\u201d with Army personnel of the 127th Infantry Battalion who conducted a patrol from UNP 2-45 to Beirut and the Air Corps flight crew of the C295 who performed the strategic airlift from Casement Aerodrome in Dublin to Beirut.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\u00d3glaigh na h\u00c9ireann can confirm that an operation took place to transport key Battalion personnel to United Nations Post 2-45 and to return Communications Specialists who had been performing critical maintenance to communication systems and infrastructure. <\/p>\n<p>This was a joint\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Ize6y02A8N\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/Ize6y02A8N<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 \u00d3glaigh na h\u00c9ireann (@defenceforces) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/defenceforces\/status\/2037625119195992400?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">March 27, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In a statement, the Defence Forces said: \u201cThis operation demonstrates the strategic reach capability of the Air Corps, as well as the capabilities of our Army personnel employing force protection measures to enable operations in a conflict zone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It is the first such operation using the \u201cstrategic reach\u201d capability of the Air Corps.<\/p>\n<p>The Defence Forces said it needed to conduct the mission because a civilian air partner had cancelled a planned flight to rotate personnel out, over concerns of the increased risk in Beirut\u2019s airspace.<\/p>\n<p>This left key personnel, including medical battalion headquarters staff and medics, unable to return to the 17th Infantry Battalion.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, several communication specialists deployed to work on systems across Unifil\u2019s area of operations were also due on the cancelled flight.<\/p>\n<p>They had been working on rebroadcast towers, communication hardware in the armoured fleet and other network engineering tasks.<\/p>\n<p>The Defence Forces worked with the Department of Defence and Department of Foreign Affairs to co-ordinate the strategic airlift and ensure diplomatic clearances for all personnel.<\/p>\n<p>The C295 was selected and the internal configuration was modified to carry both the 26 battalion personnel and required logistics.<\/p>\n<p>On Thursday, personnel reported to Casement Aerodrome and the C295 took off that morning for Cyprus via Italy.<\/p>\n<p>The aircraft then overnighted in Cyprus to comply with a mandatory rest period, before taking off on Friday to fly directly to Beirut.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier that morning, the 127th Infantry Battalion travelled in a MOWAG armoured personnel carrier from Camp Shamrock to Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut.<\/p>\n<p>The patrol required heightened level of force protection on its journey.<\/p>\n<p>The patrol was at the airport prior to the C295 landing and oversaw a transfer of material and personnel, seeing the plane depart and the armoured personnel carriers return to Camp Shamrock on the same day.<\/p>\n<p>The Defence Forces said the operation shows how it can use the new aircraft to respond and support personnel in challenging environments.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Defence Forces has conducted its first personnel rotation in a conflict zone using new \u201cstrategic reach\u201d capability.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-369956","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}