Hague told the BBC: “Certainly weapons, Tuareg people coming out of Libya have contributed to this situation that then al Qaida in the Maghreb have been able to take advantage of.”

“We were involved, if you recall, in saving lives in Libya. I think, actually, if we had not been doing that, because what we did actually shortened the Libyan conflict, these problems would have been, if anything, even greater.

“If the Libyan conflict had gone on for longer, there would have been an even greater flow of weapons and an even greater opportunity for extremists to take hold in Libya.” He added: “While the Libyan situation may well have contributed to what has happened in Mali, I think the action that the Western world took in Libya, if anything, mitigated that.”