{"id":671788,"date":"2026-11-01T13:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T13:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/671788\/"},"modified":"2026-11-01T13:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T13:36:10","slug":"a-change-of-flag-for-irish-troops-in-lebanon-what-will-loss-of-un-mandate-mean-for-defence-forces-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/671788\/","title":{"rendered":"A change of flag for Irish troops in Lebanon: What will loss of UN mandate mean for Defence Forces? \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

After decades attempting to keep the peace along what\u2019s known as \u201cthe Blue Line\u201d, United Nations<\/a> troops are leaving Lebanon<\/a>. <\/p>\n

A new, fairly limited EU military mission that follows is going to look very different. <\/p>\n

Military sources stress it will in no way involve Defence Forces<\/a> troops being sent into Hizbullah strongholds to disarm the militant group, or see Irish soldiers take a side in any future civil war, as some have suggested. <\/p>\n

The mission will be limited to training up the Lebanese armed forces, ideally to the point where they can establish control over all of Lebanon\u2019s territory some day. <\/p>\n

EU assistance will come nowhere close to replacing the size and scope of Unifil<\/a>, the United Nations\u2019 peacekeeping force of 8,000 troops in south Lebanon, which includes several hundred Irish soldiers.<\/p>\n

The UN troops patrol the Blue Line meant to separate the forces of Israel and Lebanon, and Hizbullah<\/a> militias concentrated nearby. <\/p>\n

The peacekeeping operation has been in operation since 1978, but is being wound down at the end of this year because the Donald Trump administration opposed its renewal, at the behest of Israel. <\/p>\n

UN blue helmets acted as the international community\u2019s eyes and ears during Israel\u2019s encroachment into Lebanon, in its most recent invasion targeting Hamas-aligned Hizbullah forces in response to the October 7th attacks. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Southern Lebanon devastation shows why peacekeepers must remain, Helen McEntee saysOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The end of the UN mission has prompted concern about what will fill the void. <\/p>\n

European governments are keen to retain a presence in the beleaguered country, and the Lebanese state is happy to have them. <\/p>\n

A proposed EU military support mission was approved by the union\u2019s foreign ministers in October. It will see European troops providing \u201cadvisory support and training\u201d to the Lebanese army on border surveillance, patrolling and reconnaissance, according to the legal text establishing what will be known as EUSM Lebanon. Since 2006 Unifil\u2019s mandate has included work to support the Lebanese armed forces, so this is no great departure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t need to be taught how to hold a rifle and kick down a door, they are well able to do that themselves,\u201d one military source said. Lebanon\u2019s gendarmerie will receive specialist training in counterterrorism and public order policing too. <\/p>\n

\"InIn the southern Lebanese village of Zawtar al-Gharbiya, a man watches an Israeli tank conducting an operation. Photograph: Ammar Ammar\/AFP via Getty <\/p>\n

European troops and other trainers will be based near the capital, Beirut. <\/p>\n

One Brussels-based source said the initial deployment would comprise about 160 personnel, though that could well be scaled up to several hundred people later.<\/p>\n

The operation will be similar to an EU mission undertaken in Mali between 2013 and 2024, that helped train the west African country\u2019s armed forces, who were struggling to contain Islamic extremists and other militias. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Lebanon\u2019s children lost in Israeli attacks: \u2018It\u2019s the grimmest side of this conflict\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The State contributed a contingent of 20 troops to the training operation in Mali, plus a dozen elite Ranger Wing soldiers who joined a parallel UN \u201cstabilisation\u201d force. <\/p>\n

No decision has been taken on how many troops will be drawn from each EU state contributing to the mission in Lebanon. <\/p>\n

The deployment will not have a peace enforcement remit. Despite this, the proposed training plan has drawn criticism from Opposition politicians and neutrality campaigners. <\/p>\n

Independent Senator Tom Clonan<\/a>, a former Irish Army captain, said participation could be seen as the Republic joining \u201cone side in a potential civil war\u201d, by aiding the Lebanese armed forces. <\/p>\n

Any step towards peace enforcement without the cover of a UN mandate, or helping efforts to disarm Hizbullah, would put a target on Irish troops\u2019 backs, said Clonan. <\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s foreign affairs spokesman Donnchadh \u00d3 Laoghaire<\/a> similarly warned the Government risked embroiling Irish troops in a renewed civil war, by \u201cfreeing the Lebanese army to focus on disarming Hizbullah\u201d. <\/p>\n

Mark Mellett, former Defence Forces chief of staff, pushed back on all that. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea of a training mission is no different than what we did in Mali,\u201d he said. \u201cThe only people who will be enforcing peace will be the Lebanese armed forces,\u201d the retired military chief said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a sovereign decision,\u201d Mellett said. \u201cWe\u2019re not being dragged by the EU into this. It\u2019s not a force that\u2019s inserting itself; it is there at the invitation of the Lebanese state,\u201d Mellett said. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Jaded rhetoric and trite stereotypes about neutrality are inflaming triple lock debateOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence Helen McEntee<\/a> muddied the waters a bit herself, by stating the future Lebanon operation could be undertaken on \u201cboth\u201d a peacekeeping and peace enforcement footing. <\/p>\n

Still, peace enforcement is not new territory for the Defence Forces. <\/p>\n

An Army Ranger Wing unit was sent into East Timor on a UN-backed peace enforcement mandate in 1999. Several hundred Irish troops went into Chad in 2008 on the same basis, to protect refugees and civilians who were fleeing conflict in the neighbouring Darfur region. <\/p>\n

Unifil\u2019s role in Lebanon has primarily been restricted to patrolling and monitoring the dividing Blue Line. <\/p>\n

There are 310 Defence Forces personnel serving there at present and 48 Irish soldiers have been killed over the Republic\u2019s near half a century long presence in Lebanon. <\/p>\n

With the UN mandate set to expire, the Government would have to remove the \u201ctriple lock\u201d check on overseas deployments to contribute more than a dozen soldiers to the new EU mission. <\/p>\n

The UN\u2019s top decision-making body \u2013 the security council \u2013 has been paralysed for years, by Russia, China, the United States, or other permanent members, wielding veto powers. The international organisation hasn\u2019t backed a new peacekeeping mission since 2014 as a consequence. <\/p>\n

Legislation tabled by McEntee would remove the need for a UN mandate to be in place before Irish troops could take up peacekeeping duties in a foreign country, to instead only require the say so of cabinet and a D\u00e1il majority. <\/p>\n

\"MinisterMinister for Defence Helen McEntee meeting Irish peacekeepers at UNP 2-45, also known as Camp Shamrock, in southern Lebanon. Photograph: Defence Forces \/Press Association <\/p>\n

It is understood Austria, another neutral country, is inclined to join the Lebanon training mission. It views an EU decision as sufficient cover to take part in peacekeeping operations overseas, rather than needing the UN nod too.<\/p>\n

There are separate discussions taking place within the French and Italian governments about the possibility of mustering a new peacekeeping force, to fulfil the monitoring role Unifil had played in Lebanon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe details of this international or multinational operation have yet to be defined,\u201d one French source said. <\/p>\n

Post-Unifil, any peacekeeping boots on the ground would be there on the invitation of the Lebanese government. The preliminary view in Dublin is that the involvement of Defence Forces troops in something like this would be unlikely. <\/p>\n

The suggestion any European-led force would play a role relieving Hizbullah militants of their weapons was \u201cout of the question\u201d, a source in the \u00c9lys\u00e9e said. <\/p>\n

Dylan Macchiarini Crosson, a researcher at the International Crisis Group think tank, said there was chatter a new peacekeeping force could become a \u201cscaled-down version of Unifil\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, in lacking a UN mandate, there would be greater risks involved for soldiers, and the force would probably need some tacit recognition from Israel, he said. <\/p>\n

The alternative would be a volatile power vacuum in southern Lebanon. \u201cThe risks are very high,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

UN peacekeeping operations are due to cease on December 31st. There will be a couple of months grace period afterwards to transport troops, weapons and equipment out of Lebanon. Beyond that, nobody is too sure what will happen. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After decades attempting to keep the peace along what\u2019s known as \u201cthe Blue Line\u201d, United Nations troops are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[27132,13308,969,86462,2244,1556,123265,61,60,31840,3410,14396,43,168493,41870,23242],"class_list":["post-671788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-austria","tag-defence-forces","tag-donald-trump","tag-donnchadh-o-laoghaire","tag-eu","tag-helen-mcentee","tag-hizbullah","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-neutrality","tag-israel","tag-lebanon","tag-news","tag-tom-clonan","tag-unifil","tag-united-nations-un"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671788","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=671788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}