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 experience and commitment. David Richards knew that with the resources available he could do more than just assist an evacuation ... he realised that he could actively stabilise the situation". Richards received the Distinguished Service Order for his leadership of British forces in Sierra Leone, while several other personnel received decorations for gallantry or distinguished service. The intervention in Sierra Leone was the fourth deployment of British forces abroad during the premiership of Tony Blair, and the largest operation undertaken by the United Kingdom alone since the Falklands War (1982). It was the second major operation of the Blair government,