While threats such as ISIS and al-Qaida remaim in different countries across the globe, counterterrorism experts said half of the terrorist victims in 2022 were killed in Africa, according to The Associated Press. The Military Times reported that multiple parts of Africa, including Chad, Sudan, Burkina Faso, and Sahel, are currently facing issues due to the heightened flow of both weapons and foreign fighters from Libya. Following the 2011 toppling of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, Libya has been in a state of upheaval. Additionally, the nation has faced further threats as many foreign fighters entered the country after the defeat of ISIS in Iraq in 2017.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 "Africa has emerged as as the key battleground for terrorism, with a major increase in the number of active groups operating on the continent," U.N. Assistant Secretary General Khaled Khiari said. Khiari explained that the al-Qaida and ISIS have emerged in Africa due to economic, political and social "fractures" in the region, as well as open boarders and "identity-based mobilization."  During the U.N.'s panel, Col. Gen. Igor Sirotkin, deputy director of Russia's Federal Security Service and head of its  National Anti-Terrorism Committee, explained that West Africa, particularly the Maghreb and Sahel regions, "are becoming the epicenter of the Islamic terrorist threat, with the armed terrorist groups expanding their influence, and as we see the danger of ISIS being reincarnated as an African caliphate."                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Article by TIMOTHY FRUDD  with AMERICAN MILITARY NEWS