“Western leaders start high-fiving and backslapping over Jihad Johnny, and some mullah puppetmaster decides it’s bad for recruiting, so he gives the order and steals the wind out of the sails of the west.”
Sorry, but what a stretch, to say the least. You don’t coordinate multiple attacks and get your people all into place, overnight.
If the plan is, and has been in place all you do is wait for the order, then execute. I commanded a military police company just south of the DMZ. The day I took command, I went to the safe in my operations room and reviewed the companies war plan. It had been in effect (with slight revisions) for years. It remained in effect the entire time I was in command. We rehearsed it, or parts of it continuously, but never executed it, but my responsibility was to ensure that my unit was ready to implement it at a moments notice.
There's no reason to believe a terrorist cell would not have similarly have plans they continuously refined and updated just waiting for the order to execute.