A change of flag for Irish troops in Lebanon: What will loss of UN mandate mean for Defence Forces?

After decades attempting to keep the peace along what’s known as “the Blue Line”, United Nations troops are leaving Lebanon.

A new, fairly limited EU military mission that follows is going to look very different.

Military sources stress it will in no way involve Defence Forces 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.

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’s territory some day.

EU assistance will come nowhere close to replacing the size and scope of Unifil, the United Nations’ peacekeeping force of 8,000 troops in south Lebanon, which includes several hundred Irish soldiers.

The UN troops patrol the Blue Line meant to separate the forces of Israel and Lebanon, and Hizbullah militias concentrated nearby.

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.

UN blue helmets acted as the international community’s eyes and ears during Israel’s encroachment into Lebanon, in its most recent invasion targeting Hamas-aligned Hizbullah forces in response to the October 7th attacks.

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The end of the UN mission has prompted concern about what will fill the void.

European governments are keen to retain a presence in the beleaguered country, and the Lebanese state is happy to have them.

A proposed EU military support mission was approved by the union’s foreign ministers in October. It will see European troops providing “advisory support and training” 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’s mandate has included work to support the Lebanese armed forces, so this is no great departure.

“They don’t need to be taught how to hold a rifle and kick down a door, they are well able to do that themselves,” one military source said. Lebanon’s gendarmerie will receive specialist training in counterterrorism and public order policing too.

European troops and other trainers will be based near the capital, Beirut.

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.

The operation will be similar to an EU mission undertaken in Mali between 2013 and 2024, that helped train the west African country’s armed forces, who were struggling to contain Islamic extremists and other militias.

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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 “stabilisation” force.

No decision has been taken on how many troops will be drawn from each EU state contributing to the mission in Lebanon.

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

Independent Senator Tom Clonan, a former Irish Army captain, said participation could be seen as the Republic joining “one side in a potential civil war”, by aiding the Lebanese armed forces.

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’ backs, said Clonan.

Sinn Féin’s foreign affairs spokesman Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire similarly warned the Government risked embroiling Irish troops in a renewed civil war, by “freeing the Lebanese army to focus on disarming Hizbullah”.

Mark Mellett, former Defence Forces chief of staff, pushed back on all that.

“The idea of a training mission is no different than what we did in Mali,” he said. “The only people who will be enforcing peace will be the Lebanese armed forces,” the retired military chief said.

“This is a sovereign decision,” Mellett said. “We’re not being dragged by the EU into this. It’s not a force that’s inserting itself; it is there at the invitation of the Lebanese state,” Mellett said.

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Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence Helen McEntee muddied the waters a bit herself, by stating the future Lebanon operation could be undertaken on “both” a peacekeeping and peace enforcement footing.

Still, peace enforcement is not new territory for the Defence Forces.

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.

Unifil’s role in Lebanon has primarily been restricted to patrolling and monitoring the dividing Blue Line.

There are 310 Defence Forces personnel serving there at present and 48 Irish soldiers have been killed over the Republic’s near half a century long presence in Lebanon.

With the UN mandate set to expire, the Government would have to remove the “triple lock” check on overseas deployments to contribute more than a dozen soldiers to the new EU mission.

The UN’s top decision-making body – the security council – has been paralysed for years, by Russia, China, the United States, or other permanent members, wielding veto powers. The international organisation hasn’t backed a new peacekeeping mission since 2014 as a consequence.

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 Dáil majority.

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.

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.

“The details of this international or multinational operation have yet to be defined,” one French source said.

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.

The suggestion any European-led force would play a role relieving Hizbullah militants of their weapons was “out of the question”, a source in the Élysée said.

Dylan Macchiarini Crosson, a researcher at the International Crisis Group think tank, said there was chatter a new peacekeeping force could become a “scaled-down version of Unifil”.

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.

The alternative would be a volatile power vacuum in southern Lebanon. “The risks are very high,” he said.

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.