A unit of the Army Ranger Wing (ARW), the Defence Forces' highly trained and heavily armed special services unit, is to be sent to East Timor as part of the UN mandated force expected to be deployed this weekend.
It is the first time in the history of the Defence Forces' involvement in UN missions that such a unit has been deployed. Until now Irish military involvement in UN foreign missions has been restricted to peacekeeping or logistical support activities.
The Ranger unit will serve with Australian Special Air Services troops. It is likely they will be used for long-range patrolling in jungle and mountain areas, possibly seeking refugees or confronting Indonesian militias.
Given the conditions in East Timor, Army sources last night conceded it was likely the unit would be involved in armed confrontations. It is understood the entire 100 or so members of the Ranger Wing volunteered.
The Australian Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, has warned Australians that the operation will be risky. "All military operations carry risk, and I've never tried to disguise those risks, and I have said to the Australian public quite candidly that there could be casualties." The Irish unit was assembled at the Rangers base inside the Curragh Camp yesterday and received inoculation for jungle service. A reconnaissance team of three will travel to south-east Asia on Tuesday, with the full unit following within weeks.
The special services troops are trained to be efficient killers, specialising in undercover operations. The unit is likely to contain a number of soldiers with sniping skills armed with rifles that can kill at ranges of up to a mile. There will also be ordnance experts. All the soldiers have a variety of soldiering, medical and other skills.
Announcing the mission yesterday the Minister for Defence, Mr Smith, said it could be October before the troops travelled as the participation was subject to a resolution of the Dail.
The Rangers train to work covertly behind enemy lines in a hostile environment for several days. Since they were formed in 1980 they have never been deployed as a unit. The largest group to serve abroad accompanied the Irish Transport Unit which took part in the Unosom mission in Somalia in 1992-1993. About a dozen Rangers accompanied the two transport units in Somalia.
A spokesman for the Defence Forces, Cmdt Eoghan O Neachtain, yesterday described the unit as having a "multiplier" function, "bringing a qualitative rather than purely quantitative edge" to the UN operations in east Timor.
The Rangers undergo a six-month intensive training course which up 85 per cent of applicants fail to pass. They train with other special forces, particularly France's GIGN, Germany's GSG9 and the British Army's SAS.
Australia prepares for UN mission to aid East Timor; Rangers are an elite fighting machine: page 11; Editorial comment: page 15