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IRISH TROOPS ON a UN peace-keeping mission are safe but on high alert after Al Qaeda-linked Syrian rebels captured a border crossing into the Golan Heights yesterday.
Three Irish soldiers are stationed close to the frontier crossing between Syria and the Israeli-owned Golan Heights, which was captured by the Islamist Al-Nusra Front after heavy fighting with Syrian government forces.
The Irish troops are part of a 130-strong UN Disengagement Observation Force located 20 km from the site of yesterday’s fighting.
A Defence Forces spokesperson told TheJournal.ie that the Irish troops were currently on high alert, but safe.
There have been a number of engagements between armed elements in the Golan Heights in the last 24 hours.
Irish Defence Forces personnel deployed to the UN Disengagement Observation Forces (UNDOF) with the 44th Infantry Group remain on high alert and all Defence Forces personnel and equipment remain safe and accounted for.
The 44th Infantry Group continue to monitor the situation.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said an array of rebel fighters, including from the Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front and the Western-backed Free Syrian Army, took the crossing after heavy fighting.
At least 20 Syrian soldiers and an unknown number of rebels were killed.
It said clashes also raged in the towns of Jaba, Tal Kroum and Rawadi in Quneitra province.
The fighting on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights frontier spilled over into Israel, with errant fire wounding an army officer and Israeli civilian, Israel’s military said.
In response, the Israeli Defence Forces said they attacked Syrian military positions in the Golan Heights.
From the Israeli side of the de facto border, large clouds of smoke could be seen, as gunfire and explosions sounded in the distance. Israeli soldiers observed the fighting.
Israel says it holds the Syrian government responsible for any violence that emanates from its territory.
Israel captured the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau overlooking northern Israel, from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war.
Contains reporting by Associated Press.
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Whatever your opinions, let’s just hope these lads come home safe…
‘Hope’ Hope, wont get these people home, who sent these troops out there defending Israel ?
I guess you are more concerned with a political agenda than the safe passage of your fellow countrymen.
“Israeli owned Golan Heights” Surely Israeli occupied Golan Heights is what you meant?
Quite right. It is occupied land,
‘Israel says it holds the Syrian government responsible for any violence that emanates from its territory.
Israel captured the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau overlooking northern Israel, from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war’
But then what is really farcical is the assumption, given the current state of affairs, that Syria controls or should control everything that emanates from its territory
I hope our troops get home safe and well.
How things have changed when you are relieved to see that they are the Al Qaeda linked faction.
All bad in life is relative and it can always be worse.
Why send our “Dad’s Army” into harm’s way anyhow – they are not a fighting force and would be trashed by a few Kalashnikov wielding youths within an hour.
@Brain
An idiotic comment…
Very educated comment Brian! Well done indeed.
Brian, idiotic doesn’t even begin to describe that comment.
Ducking clown
Brian Haines shouldn’t you be in school?
You are a bit of an idiot Brian. I can assure you our soldiers can knuckle down with the best of them. They are extremely well disciplined and highly trained young men and women. I would rather them standing beside me over a donkey like you any day if there was trouble. Our soldiers will be fine. They know their jobs.
Another armchair warrior, Brian you moron
I know this article is about the Irish Troops but every time I see anything from that IDF twitter page I get annoyed. The sh*te they do be spoutting.
For anyone who still doubted where the weapons that the west have supplied to the “moderate” FSA are going, they are fighting alongside Al Qaeda in Syria, the Al Nusra Front. Israel also helped Al Qaeda in their fight against Assad’s forces, shelling their positions as well.
Re Pat
It’s propaganda, plain and simple, one side of the story ever. The Western national interests side. Never any other perspective.
Let’s not forget the FSA have said from day one that they will turn Syria into an Islamic state with Sharia law if they win their fight. The West is backing a group that will turn a secular country into an Islamic state with Sharia law. I mean, the FSA banned women from driving in Aleppo as one of their first decrees when they were in control of Aleppo.
No outcry from the West. The Western governments are a ok with this as their interests in the region(gas pipeline) will be served by the group they back and the populations of the Western countries, such as Ireland, have not got one iota what is going on being more concerned with posting on social sites what they had for dinner and the likes.
@ Horg
‘It’s propaganda, plain and simple, one side of the story ever’
That’s rich coming from you Horg.
Horgay, never any other perspective from you either. You are Assad’s mouthpiece on the journal.
Declan Noonan Better Assad’s mouth piece that be the mouthpiece of some war mongering psychopath that supports a head hacking terrorist regime.
”Horgay, never any other perspective from you either. You are Assad’s mouthpiece on the journal.”
– I don’t think so – but di you not think it ridiculous that if US attacks IS in Syria – it will be helping Assad .
US was cause of IS being set up – and was ok with it when it fought Assad – giving it money and guns – but now that it has taken over large parts of Iarqe and parts of Syria – it is an enemy of US . So once again – the US has set up a crowd that has turned on it – US never learns .
from Znet
”The situation has become so absurd that the U.S. is now spending millions of dollars bombing U.S.-made military equipment in Iraq — itself worth millions, previously gifted to the Iraqi government and then taken by ISIS.”
Re Jim
Yeah, I do think it’s ridiculous. With the US it doesn’t matter who it’s friends with or enemies. Everything is temperal with the US.
The US is wholly consumed with finding new ways to spend the petrodollar and new ways to fight which will consume the petrodollars. It’s as simple as that. Although I think the US is getting ready for a reset, hence them robbing gold from countries, storing up and refusing to give gold back to other countries.
Note to the author:
How can you say Israel has avoided taking sides in the war when Israel has carried out several acts of war inside Syria by launching airstikes on Syrian institutions/military installations over the pass two years?
Also, Israel in cooperation with the US operating out of their joint intelligence centre in the Jordanian desert has provided intelligence to the Syrian ‘rebels’.
Israel has patched up Syrian rebels in military field hospitals on the Syrian birder before sending back to Syria to continue their fight against the Syrian government. Israel does not do this for Syrian soldiers.
Do, again, I ask the author why does he write that Israel has not taken sides?
Horgay, I just had a look at your twitter account. Now you have a tweet on your feed from mike Wallace and it’s about the US sharing intelligence with Assad about Isis. They are doing this through Iraqi and Russian channels. You are condemning of the west for supporting the rebels but this tweet shows that the US does not support Isis. Care to comment?
And you retweeted it.
Re Declan
pwah
”You are condemning of the west for supporting the rebels but this tweet shows that the US does not support Isis.”
- As I commented above the West supported IS when it suited them – but now IS is a threat – taking over oilfields – so Obama is now helping ASSAD in fighting IS.- an organization they helped set up, fund and arm .
I think this has happpened before !!
PS forgot to add link to this excellent video
http://zcomm.org/zvideo/blowback/
US bombs and kills innocent much of time – then is surprised at blowback – what do they expect ??
This could turn out to be really serious.
Israel… at war with the middle east……backed by the USA and both are responsible for the murder and land grabbing carried out daily
The weapon being carried by the Irish soldier in the photo accompanying this story is not loaded, not very reassuring.
Not all exercises are done with live rounds
:-)
Lets hope he doesn’t shout BOO!!!
Well considering that as a professional army, you should find it reassuring that we train our troops safely and ensure they are drilled to exhaustion with no ammo long before they are practiced in drills with ammo. It is also safe to assume that this pic wasn’t taken when the boys were about to face down a hoard of jihadists in Syria. Check your logic and facts before you post in ignorance.
I was just about to say that. They don’t have any bullets as a peace-keeping force.
@Margaret that is a ridiculous comment and just goes to show how much you know about the irish army and their peace keeping mission
Anthony I was about to respond to your post when I saw the personal attack in the last sentence, so I won’t lower my self…
Good man, well if that’s what you consider taking a personal attack, god love you when someone says something that could be genuinely considered mean and directs it at you. Whereas our lads face something slightly more dangerous than someone suggesting ignorance.
‘Israeli owned Golan Heights’ – did the IDF contribute to this article ?
Israel will correctly not tolerate any kind of military strike from the Syrian side of the border. However it does appear from this article to be ‘errant’. If the rebels gain further ground on the border I would hope – whatever group they are aligned too – have enough sense and discipline not to antagonize Israel. This would place those Irish troops in clear and present danger. Although of course it may be the very intentions of certain rebel groups to draw Israel in.
No rebel group would be dumb enough draw Israel in. They’d be finished in days.
You do realise that whenever shells land in the Israeli occupied Golan Heights that every single time the IDF have targeted the Syrian Army, even of the rebels were the ones who were responsible. Al Qaeda in Syria now control a border crossing with Israel and they don’t even seem bothered. Very strange situation don’t you think?
Israel targets the Syrian Army in order to deter any further violence, regardless of who actually fired. Israel’s priority is the protection of it own citizens. Israel and Syria are I believe still technically in a state of war, and Assad is still officially in power, they are the govt hence they are responsible. That may be excessively legalistic but it is the way Israel seem to regard the situation.
And of course they are going to be bothered, but Israel have been preparing for such destabilization since the civil war started.
Israel & America have been training some of these groups in Jordan. Notice how any ‘errant fire’ results in Israeli attacks on on the Syrian Army, regardless of its source
On the liveleak website there is some crazy/sick videos of whats happening in syria,the majority of the videos are made by the gunmen themselves and a nice bit of the time they end up dead.i would go as far as saying about 2% of these dumb ass rebels are killed whilst trying to video a friend firing at the enemy.
Common practice seems to be if ya end up dead from gun fighting in the streets all your mates take pics of the mangled body & then they throw ya in the nearest fridge for when things are calmer.
Wishing our troops come home safe
A common sense solution might be to rotate out these observers and have the UN replace them with more heavily armed peace enforcers instead of peacekeepers, as has been the case elsewhere. My understanding was that the UN had placed the entire border between Israel and Syria under a cordon sanitaire. If Syrian rebels linked to Al Qaeda are taking border crossings, UNDOF might not be the team for the job.
UNDOF aren’t observers, UNTSO are
United Nations Disengagement Observer Force = UNDOF
Yeah I don’t think they should be there. It’s too dangerous. Didn’t the Austrians pull out last year because it was too dangerous. It was a stupid decision by Shatter to send our guys into that bear pit IMO.
What ever they do they should keep the guns away from the nine year old,s
I hope are troops get back safe n sound, never mind the morons talking about potato guns and all that bull, the fact is our troops experience conflict alot of times and it is only the ignorant that make these stupid comments, little is known about all the work the irish defence forces do and there is a reason for it, to all the morons talk to someone in the defence forces before making comments and do research on the internet.
Our
Our troops should not be there. Natural resource and oil reserves control is the agenda here. This is occupied territory. That said hope they make it home safely.
Irish troops won’t stand a chance with there water pistols and potato guns. Heaven help us
i think you will find they use the same assault rifle as many other countries ya dope
Yep the same one as Australia, NZ and Austria to name a few.
@steven and what would you know about what weaponry the irish army used
So there you have it, FSA(supplied by west) working with Al Qaeda fighting against the Syrian Army who are also combating ISIS. And still the west see’s Assad as the bad guy!
it doesn’t matter who he’s fighting terrorist wise the man is responsible for the deaths of thousands of his own people,just because you share the same enemy doesn’t make you friends
Would the Israeli occupied Golan heights not be more appropriate than Israeli “owned” ?????
Hopefully these men are all returned home safe. After all, winter is approaching and those sandbags aren’t going to put themselves out.
It’s going to go tits up soon! Get our lads out of there now!
It’s the Israeli-occupied soon to be unoccupied Golan Heights not the Israeli-owned Golan Heights, There are some very ancient dolmens in that area very similar to those in Ireland predating monotheism, maybe we should raise the tricolor and claim a historical right to sovereignty in keeping with local custom.
We all know its all fault of Israel
They should withdraw totally from the Golan heights as the UN demands
Surrender to the tender mercies of Isis.
Then all the groups Isis, Al Qaeda could rain shells from there on most of Israel.
What other country in the world is the UN asking to commit suicide.
the irish army are good at shooting animals on a farm in monaghan…..thats as far as it goes im afraid…..they showed up for the 1916 rising dressed up like stuffed monkeys….they hang around the banks when money is being transferred small people playing with big toys …what a laugh….what do we need an army for,,,,,,we send most of them aboard and they are not even very good at that,,,,,
i would like to get inside the mind of the personnel officer,,,,,,must be a bungalow…….
the farmer in question would sue the irish free state,,,,,,,,,i know i would,,,,having an irish passport is embarrassing,,,
have your say