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
Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War Iraq and Belarus, have generally supported the intervention; Western reactions were far to the contrary, with many Western governments denouncing Russia for its role in the war and accusing the state of complicity in the Syrian regime's alleged war crimes. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have alleged Russia is committing war crimes and deliberately targeting civilians, the United States has condemned the intervention and imposed economic sanctions against Russia for supporting the Syrian government, and officials at the United Nations have condemned the Russian intervention and accused Russia of war crimes. Russian authorities have dismissed the accusations as false