Operation Barkhane
France’s Sahel-wide counterterrorism operation, 2014–2022 — left Mali in August 2022 and ended that November.
Broad area of activity
Five Sahel states; in Mali, based at Gao with the north as its hunting ground.
Notable history
Barkhane killed successive jihadist commanders — including ISGS’s founder and AQIM’s emir — and kept the insurgencies from massing, but could not reverse their spread. After the coups, Bamako’s pivot to Wagner and escalating disputes, France withdrew from Mali in August 2022 and ended Barkhane that November. Its departure removed the air cover, intelligence and medevac that had underwritten a decade of the status quo.
Strengths
Precision strike and special-operations reach no successor replaced.
Limitations
A decade of decapitation without stabilisation; political sustainability collapsed at both ends.
Reported & historical equipment associations
Related organisations
- Task Force Takuba Institutionally linked to · as of 2022-06 · high confidence
Operated under Barkhane's command and logistics umbrella; both ended with the French withdrawal from Mali.
Lineage & institutional history
Predecessors: Operation Serval
Key events
France withdraws from Mali
President Macron announces the end of Barkhane operations in Mali in February; the last French soldier leaves Malian territory on 15 August 2022, nine years after Serval.
Assessed as of2022-11Last reviewed2026-07-15