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
Foreign involvement in the Syrian Civil War Russian-speaking “Caucasian” (often led by Chechens) battalions of about 150 men each, the rank and file of those having been drawn from Russia′s North Caucasus and other parts of the former Soviet Union. Israel's military role in the Syrian Civil War has been limited and until 2017 officially not acknowledged, whereas Syria and Israel have technically been in a state of war since 1948, albeit without major open hostilities after the 1973 conflict. Israeli official position had until 2017 been neutrality in the civil war in Syria. Until the March 2017 strike, Israel's reported attacks on targets inside Syria were