2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria resulted in Kurdish-held ISIS prisoners escaping, including Smith, although the Defence Forces or Irish government did not confirm this. ARW personnel were in plainclothes and "discreetly armed" for protection purposes. Smith was repatriated to Dublin Airport where she was arrested by Gardai and charged with terrorism offences. During the War in Afghanistan, ARW personnel served in small numbers with ISAF and RSM from October 2006 to March 2007 and from September 2014 to March 2015, mainly as trainers, medical staff and IED experts. On 23 August 2021 in the aftermath of the Fall of Kabul to the Taliban, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence Simon Coveney approved the deployment of an Emergency Consular Assistance Team (ECAT) comprising ARW personnel and a small team of DFA diplomats to Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul in order to evacuate Irish citizens. The options available to the Irish government to extract its citizens were hampered by Ireland's lack of an organic strategic airlift capability. The mission ended on 26 August, just 48 hours after the team touched down in Kabul and resulted in the evacuation of 26 Irish citizens. It was reported the last members of the ECAT team left minutes after a deadly suicide bombing at Kabul airport. Reported domestic missions In December 1983 the ARW was involved in an operation against a Provisional IRA "unit" on the loose in woodland in the South of County Leitrim that had been holding hostage for ransom a kidnapped businessman, the ARW having been sent in by the Government after the P-IRA had murdered a Garda officer and an Irish Army soldier that had found their hideout. In the early 1990s the ARW took part in operations in support of the Garda Emergency Response Unit against the Provisional IRA. In January 1997, two teams of 12 from the ARW were sent to Mountjoy Prison in central Dublin where three prisoners armed with knives had taken two prison officers hostage and barricaded themselves inside the Medical Unit where they were threatening to kill the prison officers. The ARW took up positions ready to blow down the steel door to the unit and eliminate the threat posed by the hostage-takers. The siege ended within a few hours of the ARW being called in after the hostage-takers were made aware of their presence during negotiations and surrendered. In May 2011, the unit