Video shows French Mirage, Rafale combat planes at work in Mali Air War

With information officially released by the French MoD becoming scarce (and reporters from all around the world either embedded with Paris Special Forces or simply stationed around the main bases in West Africa, being denied the possibility to provide much details about the ongoing Operation Serval for OPSEC issues) the only way to get a glimpse of what is going on in Mali Air War is almost exclusively through the images and footage of the French Air Force’s Sirpa Air.

In this post you can watch a video of the Mirage F1CR, moved from N’Djamena to Bamako to undertake QRA (Quick Reaction Alert) duties from the airport of Mali capital town, and the Rafale Air multirole jets refueling during a strike mission.

The current unconfirmed Order of Battle of the French forces in Mali (as of Jan. 16) is made of:

  • 4x Rafale, 2x C-135FR, 1x A310, 1x C130, 3x C-160 Transal, 4x Mirage 2000D, 1x CN235 at N’Djamena, Chad
  • 2x Mirage F1CR, 8x Gazelle, 4x Super Puma at Bamako, Mali

Rafale over Mali

Image credit: FAF

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About David Cenciotti
David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.