"However, such an official designation would signal an ideological reversal for the group with deep roots in the Levant, the territory of the IS caliphate that lasted from 2014 to 2019 and spanned Iraq and Syria. “That would create some kind of uproar within the community of supporters and sympathisers of IS,” said Hans-Jakob Schindler, director of the Counter-Extremism Project (CEP) think tank."