This is the Popular Front podcast with me Jake Hanrahan.

We're focused on the niche details of modern warfare and underreported conflict

all across the world. Popular Front is

completely independent. Today we're speaking to writer, researcher and

artist Adam Doyle also known as Spice Bag. He's talking to us about the sticky

situation going on right now on the South Lebanese border where Israeli forces including several

Makava tanks have pulled right up to the position of the Irish peacekeepers and

are telling them basically get out the way we want to push through and fight Hezbollah on this line.

The Irish troops have said no and so clear intimidation tactics are taking

place. Support us at patreon.com slash popular front. I think we should talk about Ireland's role as a peacekeeping force in Lebanon

before we talk about the the current threats to them via Israel a lot of people are not aware I think that

Ireland has had troops stationed there for a long time so if you can just explain that

that role that they have there. Ireland is obviously neutral.

It doesn't have any sort of like foreign engagements

in terms of like wars are backing up sort of coalitions

or anything like that.

So our only military sort of deployments are peacekeeping. So there's

been an Irish sort of contingent of UN peacekeepers called UnifIL in Lebanon since 1978 and that's just one of the kind of

international deployments we have we have like guys in Syria Jordan, Kosovo, Mali and a few other places, maybe the Congo.

So Lebanon has kind of been a very long term sort of deployment and then I don't know within that I think there's roughly I think it's 380 something personnel that are kind of

operating in Lebanon so there's one Irish base which is kind of further back from

the border but still in South Lebanon that's sort of the main area called

...