The following day, the UDA claimed responsibility for the attack using the cover name "Ulster Freedom Fighters" (UFF). Its statement said that the "Greysteel raid" was "the continuation of our threats against the nationalist electorate that they would pay a heavy price for last Saturday's slaughter of nine Protestants". A West Belfast UDA member claimed that his organisation "had information that senior IRA men drank in the Rising Sun... Unfortunately they were not there on Halloween but our boys acted on the briefing they had been given". Afterwards, the gunmen were said to have boasted about the killings.