BEIRUT: 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 UNIFIL, the UN’s peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, last week as their convoy passed near the southern town of Al-Aqbiya. The area is a stronghold of the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group.
Kearney suffered from blunt force trauma to the head in the attack, and is in serious but stable condition.
24-year-old Pvt. Seán Rooney 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.
Wounded Irish peacekeeper will be evacuated from Lebanon
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Wounded Irish peacekeeper will be evacuated from Lebanon
- 24-year-old Pvt. Seán Rooney 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
Tunisian police arrest member of parliament who mocked president
- Ahmed Saidani mocked the president in a Facebook post, describing him as the “supreme commander of sewage and rainwater drainage”
TUNIS: Tunisian police arrested lawmaker Ahmed Saidani on Wednesday, two of his colleagues said, in what appeared to be part of an escalating crackdown on critics of President Kais Saied.
Saidani has recently become known for his fierce criticism of Saied. On Tuesday, he mocked the president in a Facebook post, describing him as the “supreme commander of sewage and rainwater drainage,” blasting what he said was the absence of any achievements by Saied.
Saidani was elected as a lawmaker at the end of 2022 in a parliamentary election with very low voter turnout, following Saied’s dissolution of the previous parliament and dismissal of the government in 2021.
Saied has since ruled by decree, moves the opposition has described as a coup.
Most opposition leaders, some journalists and critics of Saied, have been imprisoned since he seized control of most powers in 2021.
Activists and human rights groups say Saied has cemented his one-man rule and turned Tunisia into an “open-air prison” in an effort to suppress his opponents. Saied denies being a dictator, saying he is enforcing the law and seeking to “cleanse” the country.
Once a supporter of Saied’s policies against political opponents, Saidani has become a vocal critic in recent months, accusing the president of seeking to monopolize all decision-making while avoiding responsibility, leaving others to bear the blame for problems.
Last week, Saidani also mocked the president for “taking up the hobby of taking photos with the poor and destitute,” sarcastically adding that Saied not only has solutions for Tunisia but claims to have global approaches capable of saving humanity.
Under Tunisian law, lawmakers enjoy parliamentary immunity and cannot be arrested for carrying out their duties, although detention is allowed if they are caught committing a crime.
