Operation Serval it had lost a few days earlier. French airstrikes appeared to stop the rebel advance to the south which prompted the intervention and destroyed an Ansar Dine command post near Konna. France asked the U.S. to speed up its contribution by sending drones to improve surveillance over the vast area of northern Mali. The Pentagon was reported to have studied the French request. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom announced that his country would lend logistical support to the operation. ECOWAS troops preparing to deploy to Mali also decided to move up their arrival date to January 14
British military intervention in the Sierra Leone Civil War civilian population, rather than exclusively to protect national interests. Kosovo did not diminish Blair's belief in the use of military force for humanitarian purposes "where a strong moral case could be made", and he outlined a set of criteria for intervention. The intervention in Sierra Leone, according to Andrew M. Dorman of King's College London, "appears to embody much of the ethos contained within [the Chicago speech]". The intervention in May 2000 was the first major deployment of British forces to Sierra Leone during the civil war, but was not the first time British personnel had served there. In May