Originally Posted by rickair7777

That would apply if a nation-state were behind it. But terrorist groups want credit, notoriety, and publicity if for no other reason than they are competing with other groups for financial support from those willing to give it. Terror-minded folks with means tend to prefer to back winners who get things done.

For terrorists taking immediate credit is very important, such that their operations are typically planned to allow for that...to the extent that the credit-taking often has a built-in mechanism to validate authenticity. Example, send an encrypted announcement email to the media BEFORE the event, and then follow up afterwards with the key to decrypt. This ensures the right bad guy gets the media credit, but doesn't risk blowing the op with advance notice. Also if it fails, the reporter will never know what the email said (unless he sends it to the NSA for some reason).


Waiting dilutes the impact and allows other to falsely take credit.

The flip side of this is if the bad actor (usually state-sponsored) prefers to avoid scrutiny, they can arrange with other like-minded groups for multiple bad guys to claim credit simultaneously, thus confusing the issue. Fun and games with these guys.