Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Sudan, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina as part of various international missions. With the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 and the Libyan Civil War, the ARW, Air Corps and other Defence Forces assets were deployed in order to evacuate upwards of 115 Irish citizens from the country, mainly via the capital Tripoli. The ARW operated out of the British diplomatic mission in Malta. It was reported at the time that Irish officials printed fake boarding passes in order to bypass "tight" security at Tripoli airport, where authorities refused to allow a large number of aircraft to land or take off. Three Irish aircraft were involved in the operation. In 2012, it was reported that the ARW could deploy 30 Rangers in the Gulf of Aden, subject to Government, Dáil and UN approval ("triple-lock"), to protect international shipping lanes against Somali pirates as part of the EU's Operation Atalanta. As of 2014, Rangers were serving missions on three continents, including training foreign forces in Africa and the Balkans, protection duties in Lebanon for the United Nations mission and security and intelligence operations on the Israeli-Syrian border (Golan Heights). In late 2015, Private John O'Mahony (Ret.) gave evidence as a witness in a military trial in Beirut, Lebanon against Mahmoud Bazzi, a former Lebanese militia fighter accused of murdering Private Thomas Barrett and Private Derek Smallhorne of the Irish Army in April 1980 in Southern Lebanon (see At Tiri Incident). O'Mahony was accompanied during his entire time in Lebanon by a Close Protection Team from the Army Ranger Wing. The ARW was chosen to spearhead the special operations task group (SOTG) for the EU Battlegroup rapid reaction force based in Germany, deploying in late 2019. It was the fourth time the Irish Defence Forces served in the Battlegroup, but the first time the ARW have as a unit. The wider force comprises 1,500 troops from EU member states. The ARW trained with the battlegroup for six months after which they remained on standby with it for 18 months. This overlapped with the unit's rotations to MINUSMA in Mali. In October 2019 it was reported that the ARW were deployed to the Syrian border to extract Lisa Smith - a former Irish Army soldier who converted to Islam before fleeing Ireland to join ISIS - and her two-year-old child in a Non-Combatant Evacuation Operation (NEO) after the