page_title: History of the Irish Guards
section_title: 21st Century: The Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Irish Guards / 1945 – present day / 21st Century: The Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
caption_attribution_description: English: Afghan National Army soldiers with 3rd Kandak, 3rd Brigade, 215th Afghan National Army Corps and their coalition advisors with 1st Battalion, Irish Guards Brigade Advisory Group move on patrol during Operation Omid Shash in Gereshk, Helmand province, Afghanistan, Feb. 6. The advisors have been working with 3rd Kandak for more than five months. During Omid Shash, the ANA and British army soldiers worked together to clear several villages south of Gereshk city.
context_page_description: The history of the Irish Guards as an infantry regiment of the British Army dates from the Regiment's formation in 1900. The Irish Guards have an over one hundred year-long history during which the regiment have served with distinction in almost all of the United Kingdom's conflicts throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries ranging from the First World War to the War in Afghanistan.
  The Irish Guards were formed by Queen Victoria in 1900 to honour the Irishmen who had fought in the Second Boer War. The Irish Guards first saw combat as a regiment in the First World War during which they fought on the Western Front from the beginning to the end of the war. The regiment played a significant role in many of the First World War's pivotal battles such as the First Battle of Ypres, the Battle of Loos and the Battle of the Somme. By the end of the war, the regiment had experienced significant losses and won four Victoria Crosses, two of them posthumous. The Irish Guards were to experience similar fighting just twenty one years later with the commencement of the Second World War.
context_section_description: The beginning of the Irish Guards second century in existence saw the death of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, who had for many decades traditionally presented the Irish Guards with shamrock on St. Patrick's Day, in 2002. At the Queen Mother's funeral the coffin bearer-party was made up of Irish Guardsmen. This was a remarkable honour, given the fact that the late Queen Mother not only was not the regiment's colonel (she was, in fact, colonel-in-chief of the Black Watch), she had no official connection with the regiment at all, in spite of her long identification with it.
  In 2003, the Irish Guards were deployed to Kuwait during the build-up to the Iraq War. The Irish Guards formed part of the 7th Armoured Brigade which was the successor of the famed 7th Armoured Division, or 'The Desert Rats', which had fought throughout the deserts of North Africa during the Second World War, and began training to prepare for the war. Similarly to their experience in the Balkans, the Irish Guards were split up with companies, platoons and sections being attached to various units of the Desert Rats. The war began on 21 March when British and American forces began crossing the Iraq border, with the Desert Rats beginning the journey towards Basra,  Iraq's second largest city. The British troops spent the next few weeks gradually taking control of much of the area that surrounded Basra with soldiers of the Irish Guards leading the British advance on Basra from late March, helping in securing objectives on the outskirts of the city. After a number of days consolidating their position, the Irish Guards fought their way into the city on 6 April and took a number of casualties in heavy urban warfare before securing the city by the end of the day. The regiment claim to have been the first to enter Basra on 6 April, stating they did so many hours before the Parachute Regiment.
  Following the conclusion of the conventional warfare phase in Iraq, the British Army were now faced with a growing insurgency and the Irish Guards reverted from a war-role to performing many duties that would be familiar to any British soldier that has served in Northern Ireland. They performed these duties until early May when they left Iraq and returned home but upon their return to the UK, they were almost immediately posted back to Northern Ireland  for a four-month posting for their third tour of the province. In 2005, the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards became the first regiment in the British Army to be officially awarded battle honours for service in Iraq – this was to enable these to be displayed on the battalion's new regimental colour during the Sovereign's Birthday Parade. The Irish Guards returned to Iraq in April 2007 for a six-month tour of the country during which they were based Basra Airport and were responsible for training the Iraqi Army in the face of an intensifying Shia-led insurgency.
  Following their return from their second tour of Iraq, the Irish Guards enjoyed a two-year rest period before, in September 2010, they deployed to Afghanistan as part of the British forces in the Afghanistan. While deployed in Helmand Province, the Irish Guards fought the Taliban insurgency and helped to train the Afghan National Army before returning home in April 2011. The regiment returned to Afghanistan in 2013 to complete their second and final tour of Afghanistan. Following the Manchester Arena bombing, 1st Battalion, Irish Guards were deployed in London to guard key locations, including the Ministry of Defence building in Whitehall, as part of Operation Temperer.
  Over twelve years after their last deployment to Iraq, the Irish Guards returned to the country in early December 2019 to help train the Iraqi security forces in their fight against ISIS as part of Operation Shader. However, the deployment rapidly changed in January 2020 with the escalation of the 2019–20 Persian Gulf crisis following the American killing of Major General Qasem Soleimani of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Irish Guard's role switched from training to force protection in order to 
caption: Irish Guardsmen in Helmand Province with members of the Afghan National Army during the War in Afghanistan.
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