Which country's longest continuous deployment began because of intense political and sectarian rioting in Northern Ireland?
Operation Banner Operation Banner was the operational name for the British Armed Forces' operation in Northern Ireland from August 1969 to July 2007, as part of the Troubles. It was the longest continuous deployment in the British military's history. The British Army was initially deployed, at the request of the unionist government of Northern Ireland, in response to the August 1969 riots. Its role was to support the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and to assert the authority of the British government in Northern Ireland. At the peak of the operation in the 1970s, about 21,000 British troops were deployed, most of them from Britain. As part of the operation, a new locally-recruited regiment was also formed: the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR).
Nagorno-Karabakh line of contact The Nagorno-Karabakh line of contact (Armenian: շփման գիծ , "shp’man gits", Azerbaijani: "təmas xətti" ) is a militarized area that separates the Armenian forces (namely the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army) and the Azerbaijan Armed Forces. It was formed in the aftermath of the May 1994 ceasefire that ended the Nagorno-Karabakh War (1988–94). It has been described as "heavily fortified," "a heavily-mined no-man's-land," and a "buffer zone of trenches." According to Thomas de Waal it is the "most militarised zone in the wider Europe," and one of the three most militarized zones in the world (along with Kashmir and North Korea). De Waal described it as a "fearsome scar on the map, more than 200 km long, with World-War-I-style trenches on either side, bristling with heavy weaponry." Gerard Toal and John O'Loughlin wrote in the "Washington Post" that the line of contact "features World War I-style trenches on both sides, in some places three rows deep."