Operation Barkhane
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Era | Date not recorded (no reliable year in Wikidata) | derived from year |
|---|---|---|
| Location | Mali | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Africa | Natural Earth |
| Coordinates | 14.5373, -2.6355 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
Operation Barkhane (French: Opération Barkhane) was a counterinsurgency operation that started on 1 August 2014 and formally ended on 9 November 2022. It was led by the French military against Islamist groups in Africa's Sahel region and consisted of a roughly 3,000-strong French force, which was permanently headquartered in N'Djamena, the capital of Chad. The operation was led in co-operation with five countries, all of which are former French colonies that span the Sahel: Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger. Mali was a part of the operation until August 2022. The countries are collectively referred to as the "G5 Sahel". The operation was named after a crescent-shaped dune type that is common in the Sahara desert.
The French military initially intervened in Mali in early 2013 as part of Operation Serval, which successfully regained the northern half of the country from Islamist groups. Operation Barkhane was intended to follow up on that success and expanded the French military's operations over a vast area of the Sahel region. The operation had the stated aim of helping the countries' governments to maintain control of their territory and preventing the region from becoming a safe haven for Islamist terrorist groups that plan to attack France and Europe.
On 24 May 2021, the 2021 Malian coup d'état was carried out by Vice President Assimi Goïta.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Operation Barkhane (revision 1370630875), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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