Wounded Irish Peacekeeper Will Be Evacuated from Lebanon

Irish peacekeepers of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) walk with the UN and Irish flags during the repatriation ceremony for Irish soldier Seán Rooney who was killed on a UN patrol, at Beirut international airport on December 18, 2022. (AFP)
Irish peacekeepers of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) walk with the UN and Irish flags during the repatriation ceremony for Irish soldier Seán Rooney who was killed on a UN patrol, at Beirut international airport on December 18, 2022. (AFP)
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Wounded Irish Peacekeeper Will Be Evacuated from Lebanon

Irish peacekeepers of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) walk with the UN and Irish flags during the repatriation ceremony for Irish soldier Seán Rooney who was killed on a UN patrol, at Beirut international airport on December 18, 2022. (AFP)
Irish peacekeepers of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) walk with the UN and Irish flags during the repatriation ceremony for Irish soldier Seán Rooney who was killed on a UN patrol, at Beirut international airport on December 18, 2022. (AFP)

A wounded Irish UN peacekeeper in Lebanon was transferred on Wednesday from a hospital to Beirut's international airport to be medically evacuated to Ireland.

Unidentified attackers opened fire on 22-year-old Pvt. Shane Kearney and three other Irish soldiers with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) last week as their convoy passed near the southern town of Al-Aqbiya. The area is a stronghold of the Lebanese Hezbollah party.

Kearney suffered from blunt force trauma to the head in the attack, and is in serious but stable condition.

Pvt. Seán Rooney, 24, was killed, while the two other soldiers were lightly wounded. Rooney's body was returned to Ireland on Sunday after Lebanon and the UN held a memorial for him. A security official told The Associated Press that Rooney was shot in the head.

Lebanon, Ireland, and the United Nations are holding separate investigations into the attack, but have yet to share any findings or issue any arrest warrants. The official told the AP that investigators had retrieved seven bullets from the vehicle.

The Irish military in a statement Wednesday said Kearney will be evacuated in a “specially equipped medical aircraft” to Casement Aerodrome, a military base southwest of Dublin, and will continue his treatment at Beaumont Hospital.

UNIFIL was created to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon after a 1978 invasion. The UN expanded its mission following the 2006 war between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, allowing peacekeepers to deploy along the Israeli border to help the Lebanese military extend its authority into the country’s south for the first time in decades.

That resolution also called for a full cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, which has not happened.

Earlier Wednesday, Israeli troops lobbed smoke bombs at Lebanese soldiers and residents in the southern Lebanese border town of Al-Hamames, as they set up barriers and barbed wires near its frontier.



Syria Monitor: 101 Killed in Battles between Pro-Türkiye, Kurdish Forces

A fighter affiliated with Syria's new administration shoots at pictures of Syria's ousted president Bashar al-Assad (R) and his late father and former president Hafez al-Assad, inside the abandoned Syrian Republican Guard (SRG) base near Damascus on January 4, 2025. (Photo by Bakr ALKASEM / AFP)
A fighter affiliated with Syria's new administration shoots at pictures of Syria's ousted president Bashar al-Assad (R) and his late father and former president Hafez al-Assad, inside the abandoned Syrian Republican Guard (SRG) base near Damascus on January 4, 2025. (Photo by Bakr ALKASEM / AFP)
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Syria Monitor: 101 Killed in Battles between Pro-Türkiye, Kurdish Forces

A fighter affiliated with Syria's new administration shoots at pictures of Syria's ousted president Bashar al-Assad (R) and his late father and former president Hafez al-Assad, inside the abandoned Syrian Republican Guard (SRG) base near Damascus on January 4, 2025. (Photo by Bakr ALKASEM / AFP)
A fighter affiliated with Syria's new administration shoots at pictures of Syria's ousted president Bashar al-Assad (R) and his late father and former president Hafez al-Assad, inside the abandoned Syrian Republican Guard (SRG) base near Damascus on January 4, 2025. (Photo by Bakr ALKASEM / AFP)

More than 100 combatants were killed over the last two days in northern Syria in fighting between Turkish-backed groups and Syrian Kurdish forces, a war monitor said on Sunday.
Since Friday evening, clashes in several villages around the city of Manbij have left 101 dead, including 85 members of pro-Turkish groups and 16 from the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The SDF said it had repelled "all the attacks from Türkiye’s mercenaries supported by Turkish drones and aviation".
The Turkish defense ministry said it had "neutralized" 32 Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, without providing further details.
Turkish-backed factions in northern Syria resumed their fight with the SDF at the same time as the opposition armed factions were launching an offensive on November 27 that overthrew Syrian president Bashar al-Assad just 11 days later.
The pro-Ankara groups succeeded in capturing Kurdish-held Manbij and Tal Rifaat in northern Aleppo province, despite US-led efforts to establish a truce in the Manbij area.
The fighting has continued since, with mounting casualties.
During a visit to Damascus on Friday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said security of the Kurds is "essential for a peaceful Syria." She said this requires "an end to the fighting in the north and the integration of the Kurdish forces... in the Syrian security architecture."
The SDF controls vast areas of Syria's northeast, and parts of Deir Ezzor province in the east, where the Kurds created a semi-autonomous administration following the withdrawal of government forces during the civil war that began in 2011.
The group, which receives US backing, took control of additional territory after capturing it from the ISIS group.
Ankara accuses the main component of the SDF, the People's Protection Units (YPG), of affiliation with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a decades-long insurgency in southeastern Türkiye and is banned as a terrorist organization by the government.
The Turkish military regularly launches strikes against Kurdish fighters in Syria and neighboring Iraq, accusing them of being PKK-linked.
Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria's new leader and the head of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, told Al Arabiya TV in late December that local Kurdish-led forces should be integrated into the national army.
HTS led the coalition of opposition groups that overthrew Assad last month.