Early Saturday, after some delay, ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack in Nice, France that killed 84 people, including an American child.

That delay is important. As we’ve written here before at RedState, and as ISIS expert Rukmini Callimachi reiterated on Twitter, ISIS does not just wildly claim every attack as their own. They claim what they are responsible for. And they claim this.

From the Wall Street Journal:

The attack “was carried out by one of the soldiers of the Islamic State, and the operation was done in response to calls to target nations of coalition states that are fighting the Islamic State,” the group’s affiliated Amaq news agency said, citing an unidentified security source, according to SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist activity.

French prosecutors had already said they had little doubt that the militant group had, at the very least, inspired the attack. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for previous attacks, although in some cases no clear link to the group has been established.

This is important for several reasons. In the first case, if you watched cable news on Friday, and in particular MSNBC, you saw a herculean effort on the part of the American press to make this not Islamic terror. It is a practiced dance and we’ve all seen the steps, but the effort put out on Friday was nothing short of titanic. He’s a criminal, a womanizer, he doesn’t pray. They drilled these points. Brian Williams and Ayman Mohyeldin in particular worked hard at this narrative. He was a crazy. By himself. A loner.

Only, he wasn’t.

French media reports that four people are believed linked to the attack and are in police custody. AFP reports that one was arrested and three others are being “held” this morning.” So much for the loner narrative.

In addition to claiming responsibility for the attack, ISIS supporters were online cheering it, cheering the death and destruction. But the American media is so invested in the leftist narrative, in protecting the world from the mean words “Islamic terror” that they worked all day to obscure these facts.

And these are not the only facts. Car attacks have been part of the plan all along, as Rukmini Callimachi explains at the New York Times.

More than five years ago, Al Qaeda called on its followers to use cars as tools of terror. Soon after, the terrorist group that had brought down the twin towers scrapped the idea, feeling that the tactic was too indiscriminate, too likely to kill Muslims.

But the idea of the car as a weapon was revived by the Islamic State shortly after it broke with Al Qaeda in 2014 following years of discord over the Islamic State’s brutal methods.

“If you are not able to find an I.E.D. or a bullet, then single out the disbelieving American, Frenchman or any of their allies,” the group’s spokesman, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, said in a speech. “Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car,” he said, according to a translation provided by the SITE Intelligence Group.

Indiscriminate terror. Is there any doubt any more? Look at the urgent frequency of attacks. The Islamic State has a goal. And whether MSNBC likes it or not, they are working toward that goal through attackers around the world who have one thing in common. They are Muslim. I believe that’s what’s known as an inconvenient truth. But truth, nevertheless. And decorating buildings with the French flag is nice, but it isn’t a solution.