Irish Army has experience to draw upon for Mali challenge

The terrorist attack in Mali could not have come at a more alarming time for the Irish Government. Armed extremists struck the luxury hotel in the very country Minister for Defence Simon Coveney had said might be the next port of call for Irish peacekeepers: suddenly Ireland had skin in the worsening terrorism game.

The truth is that Irish military personnel are well placed to meet the challenges posed by such missions, none of which are ever without risk.

In Chad and Liberia at different times over the past decade, Irish troops have kept and enforced the peace – sometimes down the barrels of their weapons – in dangerous and volatile environments.

The same applies to the current mission in Syria and, to a lesser extent, as part of the United Nations mission in Lebanon. At present there are 130 Irish personnel based in the Golan Heights between Syria and Israel.

And though the Defence Forces is secretive about incidents involving its men and women abroad, information has leaked out pointing to recent dangers.

Rescue mission

In September last year, Defence Forces personnel rescued a group of Filipino troops whose position was surrounded by hundreds of heavily armed Syrian rebels.

The rebels had just seized a Syrian border crossing, killing about 20 Syrian troops in a firefight, with a group of UN troops from Fiji disarmed and abducted in the same attack.

The Irish moved in and secured the area around the Filipinos’ post days later and evacuated their colleagues despite the presence of an armed and hostile, battle-hardened reception party.

The Irish exchanged fire a number of times with the rebels, but appeared too well drilled and well armed to be taken on.

They similarly faced armed groups on several occasions in Chad and Liberia; proving themselves a formidable, well drilled group.

In the past when the security situation deteriorated and risk sharply increased in those places Irish troops were destined for, it had little impact on deployment plans.

In 2008, when the Army Ranger Wing was on its way to Dublin Airport to depart for Chad, news broke of an all-out rebel assault on the capital of the central African nation N’Djamena. In scenes much worse than those in Mali, 2,000 rebels clashed with regime troops for three days. The Red Cross estimated about 200 people were killed and up to 1,000 wounded.

The Rangers simply waited it out in Ireland and then travelled to Chad about a week later than planned.

Heavy shelling and the loss of personnel in attacks in Lebanon, another example, did not force the Irish out, despite the strong likelihood of coming under fire for many years.

Should the Irish be deployed to Mali in the near future, it would be as replacements for French troops currently serving as peacekeepers there.

On Tuesday morning, at a meeting of 28 EU defence ministers, French minister Jean-Yves Le Drian requested the first ever invoking of the mutual defence clause under the Lisbon Treaty.

Coveney said France had suggested other EU states could assist it by taking "some of the burden" of its peacekeeping missions in Africa, which would allow it to focus on the terrorism threat at home.

He noted that the Irish already had troops in Mali, saying: “We’ll speak to France to see where we may be of assistance to them.”

The clause in the Lisbon Treaty invoked by the French was a cause for debate during both referendums on the treaty.

Concern was expressed that by offering assistance to other member states in security or defence, Ireland’s neutrality might be put at risk.

France ‘at war’

Last week, in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris, French president François Hollande said his country was now at war. And the French now want to be relieved of peacekeeping in some places to bring their troops home and fight that war.

However, when it was put to Coveney that by facilitating the French in that regard, Ireland was contributing, even indirectly, to another country’s war effort – and thus breaching its neutrality – he dismissed the notion.

He said it was a “contradiction” to suggest that peacekeeping was an act of war.