In my books I point out that the beast will be ten Islamic nations that join forces under the leadership of the Antichrist. The most recent head of the beast was the Ottoman Empire that was killed in WW1, and this head will come back to life. The final head of the beast will be 10 nations ruled by radical Islam.

The Antichrist will likely rule from Turkey or Iraq, but that does not require that these nations will be the first nations that become ruled by radical Islam. And, it does not require that the exact same nations be part of the empire; the ten nations could very well be only 5 that were once part of the empire and 5 other nations, as long as they include Turkey, which was the ruling nation of the empire, and as long as they are all Islamic. (Book 2)

And according to Daniel 7, the little horn likely represents radical Islam (Book 1) that will invade three nations, or grow inside of three nations then overthrow them, the same way that Afghanistan had radical Islam grow inside of it and was taken over by it.

I point out in Book 1 that the 10 horns of Daniel 7 are not the same as the 10 horns of the beast of Revelation, because those in Dan. 7 are the CIS, the Common Wealth of Independent States which were once part of the USSR (the book has the complete explanation). Several of those nations are mostly Islamic and will be the 3 nations uprooted by the little horn.

This includes nations such as: Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. These nations just happen to be north of Afghanistan which has just been taken over by radical Islam. If the Taliban spread north into those nations, then it means that Afghanistan is the first horn of the beast, and that they will continue to spread west into Iran, Iraq and Syria and Turkey.

I suspect strongly that this is the case, that the first horn of the beast has risen. Why would Turkey not be the first head? Because, even though it is mostly Islamic and its leader is very hardline, the whole country is not fully radical in the way that the Taliban are. Turkey does not hunt down and kill all the Christians the way the Taliban do.

The reason the Taliban is the little horn of Daniel 7 is because it is not a nation, but an ideology, and they were only about 75,000 who took the whole nation.

It is not until after it gains the full 10 horns, and becomes ruled by a Charismatic, globally popular Muslim leader that the beast will be fully reborn as the final empire.