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
Timeline of the 2011 Libyan Civil War and military intervention (16 August – 23 October) city of Sirte, which Gaddafi declared to be the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya's new capital after the fall of Tripoli. On 20 October, NTC forces that had been arrayed around the ever-shrinking positions occupied by loyalist holdouts made a decisive push and took control of the city, capturing Gaddafi as he attempted to flee. Gaddafi, who had been seriously wounded prior to his arrest, died in custody less than an hour later. Timeline of the 2011 Libyan Civil War and military intervention (16 August – 23 October) The Libyan Civil War began on 17 February 2011 as a