Irish peacekeeper convoy not accompanied by local soldiers

New details are emerging of the events leading up to the death of Pte Rooney, 24.

Irish peacekeepers caught up in the attack that led to Private Seán Rooney being killed could have had Lebanese armed forces back-up if they had been in a bigger convoy, it has emerged.

There is no official requirement for Lebanese armed forces assistance for United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) convoys made up of fewer than six vehicles.

Private Rooney and his colleagues were travelling in a convoy of just two vehicles.

Security sources have told the Irish Examiner that Unifil vehicles are less likely to be attacked when they are accompanied by local soldiers. This is because local residents in parts of southern Lebanon tend to be less suspicious of Unifil vehicles if the Lebanese armed forces are associated with them.

Investigations into what happened in the run-up to Wednesday's attack on the Unifil vehicles are expected to probe whether assistance by the Lebanese armed forces could have helped to avoid what happened, especially as the men had been travelling outside the Unifil’s normal area of operations in the middle of the night.

New details are emerging of the events leading up to the death of Pte Rooney, 24.

He was in a convoy of two armoured jeeps containing eight members of the Defence Forces on their way to Beirut. His jeep, which he was driving, took the wrong route and ended up being surrounded by a large group of people. The soldiers were fired on when they tried to get away.

Trooper Shane Kearney, from East Cork, was seriously injured in the incident, while two other colleagues escaped with minor injuries.

A Defence Forces spokesperson has confirmed that Trooper Kearney did not sustain any gunshot wounds in the incident.

He appears instead to have suffered an injury caused by "blunt force trauma".

Ongoing investigations are trying to determine how he got that injury — from someone in the group of people the vehicle met before the shooting or in the crash that followed.

His two surviving colleagues are due to be released today from Hammoud Hospital University Medical Center (HHUMC) in the city of Saida, South Lebanon.

They had been moved there from Raai Hospital, which is near the coastal town of Aaqbiyeh where Wednesday night’s incident happened, and where they had been initially treated.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the three investigations into what happened will have to be “very comprehensive” and Ireland is “determined to get the truth”.

"These are peacekeepers,” he said in Brussels in one of his last engagements as Taoiseach. “We owe it to them and to their families to get to the truth. 

It is shocking that a Unifil peacekeeping group would be attacked in the manner that they were attacked and this is something we're determined to get to the bottom of."

Iran-backed southern Lebanon-based group Hezbollah’s liaison officer Wafik Safa has described the incident as an “unintentional accident between local people and members of the Irish battalion”.

Video has emerged of the Unifil armoured utility vehicle swerving around a crowd of people trying to block its path in Aaqbiyeh, then shots are fired before it crashes.

The Irish Examiner understands communications between soldiers in the attacked vehicle and their colleagues in the other vehicle failed around the time of the incident.