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In our last issue we reported on the difficulties encountered by Air Partners, the company who were awarded the contract by the Department of Defence to provide an Air Charter service to the Defence Forces. They had failed to obtain a licence required in relation to the carriage of munitions from the UK authorities which should have been obtained even though the weapons involved were those of the Defence Forces and flight had been contracted to the Italian operator Air Italy. 200 members of the Defence Forces, the first tranche of the contingent deployed to Lebanon from Dublin Airport on 23rd June 2011 as scheduled at around 02.30am. The aircraft used for the charter was Boeing 767-36N (ER), G-POWD of Titan Airways using the flight number AWC55A. It is not known at this stage if the issues regarding the licensing had been resolved. The troops departing on the flight were bussed directly to the ramp and there equipped was similarly transported and loaded by military personal into standard air freight containers. Again it is not yet known if their personal weapons were carried.

The troops arrived at their base in Lebanon at approx 15.00 (local time) that afternoon to commence peacekeeping duty. The aircraft was noted back in Dublin three days later and was used to transport the second tranche of the battalion which again departed in the early hours of 27th June. This completed the first batch of the 440 members of the 104th Battalion taking up Peacekeeping duties with the UNIFIL mission including the advance party of specialist personnel who have been in the country since the end of May. The role of the Irish contingent within the 12,000 strong UNIFIL force drawn from 31 Troop Contributing Nations involves monitoring the cessation of hostilities, assisting the Lebanese Armed Forces (including extensive mobile patrolling throughout the Irish area of operations) and helping to ensure humanitarian access to the civilian population. The Irish Area of Operations is some 140 Sq Km extending from Tibnin in Southern Lebanon to the Blue line along the border with Israel and is centred on their camp in the village of Tibnin and two smaller posts along the Blue line with Israel.