Operation Serval of the ground and the populations". Mathieu Guidère, a scholar of Islam and the Arab world at the University of Toulouse, said in an interview published in the newsmagazine Jeune Afrique, that without the French military intervention the state of Mali would have fallen. France's stated rationale for the operation is that to do otherwise would allow "a terrorist state at the doorstep of France and Europe." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the intervention in a phone call with French President François Hollande as "a brave step against extremist Islamic terrorism". Egypt's former President Mohammed Morsi, an Islamist, criticized
British military intervention in the Sierra Leone Civil War September attacks on the United States, prevented further interventions in Africa. It was not until 2011—when Operation Ellamy was launched as part of a multi-national intervention in Libya—that the United Kingdom undertook another military intervention in Africa. The experience in Sierra Leone proved the effectiveness of relatively small numbers of well trained and equipped soldiers. It inspired the British government to work more closely with European allies, particularly France after the latter led Operation Artemis, a UN-mandated intervention in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2003. After a summit in 2003, the two governments called on the European Union (EU)