Smoke billowing from the Syrian village of Khan Arnabeh, near Quneitra during fighting between Syrian forces and rebel fighters. Photo: Getty Images

Irish members of the UNDOF, left, escorting a convoy of UNDOF vehicles leaving the Syrian side of the Golan Heights into the Israeli-occupied side. Photo: Getty Images

Disturbing new details have emerged of the horrors witnessed by UN troops in Syria. Our peacekeepers, who served six months in the Middle East up to March this year, had to come to terms with atrocities even worse than those experienced by the contingent that returned last week.

During their tour of duty, multiple beheadings by the al Qaeda-linked jihadist army Al Nusra were witnessed by other UN troops. And many of those atrocities took place inside the Irish contingent's area.

In one incident on February 18, the bodies of five Syrian Army soldiers who had been beheaded could be seen by UN troops. The following day the jihadists deliberately placed the severed head of another of their prisoners in front of a UN post, where it remained for two hours in a grotesque affront to human dignity.

The beheadings of the Syrian Army prisoners were condemned by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as "horrific atrocities" in a Security Council report in May.

During the tour, UN soldiers were repeatedly stopped by jihadist forces. Peacekeepers faced demands to state their country of origin and religion in hostile roadside interrogations.

Jihadists accused UN soldiers of being from Russia, which has actively supported the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

The implicit threat was that, as nationals of a country that supported Assad, they too faced beheading. Irish soldiers, as white Europeans like the Russians, felt vulnerable.

The 113 Irish and other UN troops who served their six month tour until March this year were massively out-gunned by the Al Nusra front, armed with tanks and other heavy weaponry.

There were also many incidents where UN troops had to drive past roadside bombs.

Irish troops at Camp Faouar inside Syria were repeatedly cut off by the jihadists and, for some periods, were caught in the midst of heavy fire between jihadists and Syrian Army forces, UN reports reveal.

Stress being suffered by soldiers in Syria was a topic raised at the recent annual conference of the non-commissioned soldiers' representative body, PDFORRA. Soldiers who returned from Syria in March are now showing signs of post traumatic stress disorder, conference was told, though there was no mention of the beheadings or the constant threat to the soldiers' lives.

The Defence Forces has placed a de facto ban on returning soldiers discussing those events.

One soldier briefly interviewed at Baldonnel Aerodrome by RTE in the early hours of Wednesday replied: "I can't really say much about it," when asked about his tour.

Since September, 1,100 UN troops have been withdrawn to safety inside Israel. The new Irish contingent, which flew out last week, is unlikely to see any action and is based in a UN logistics base with good facilities.

In his report to the Security Council, Ban Ki-moon said: "On February, 18, UN personnel saw, from a distance, the bodies of five individuals who had been beheaded, all reportedly Syrian armed forces personnel.

The report added: "In a similar atrocity on February, 19, armed members of the opposition left a human head on the ground for about two hours in proximity to United Nations position 69.

"On the same day, the armed members of the opposition informed the peacekeepers that they had 10 Syrian armed forces soldiers in captivity whom they had captured during fighting the previous day."

He added: "While checking the vehicles and the identification of the United Nations personnel, the armed members of the opposition queried the nationality of some of the United Nations personnel, assuming that they were of Russian nationality."

Meanwhile, an ex-soldier who campaigned for justice for Irish soldiers killed on duty in Lebanon in the 1980s yesterday described the Defence Forces' decision to bring the troops back from Syria in the early hours of Wednesday morning as "shameful".

Michael Walker from Donegal wrote to Defence Minister Simon Coveney last week to express his disgust at the treatment of the soldiers and their families who had to wait for hours at Baldonnel Aerodrome.

Sunday Independent