The whole point of the word "terrorist", I believe, is to categorize a particularly heinous kind of violent partisanship. So I don't think defining it based on whether you are in touch with your General makes sense as a line, why is it more heinous?

That's important because we seem to want to have a stronger reaction to terrorism, in the law, and in our own physical responses to it.

To me, what's always been so nasty about it is that innocents are targetted, rather than the direct military or governmental enemy. They target the innocents to sew terror and influence the government (particularly when the government is strongly influenced by the people as in a democracy.)

"Legitimate" states kill innocents all the time, sadly, but at least they are, or claim to be, going after the military targets.

I've always felt the word terrorism was to refer to crossing that line. When your targets become innocents, indeed when they deliberately become innocents because of how much more shocking and terrifying that is.

Now in wartime, geurilla forces, saboteurs, spies, assassins and even local traitors and others have routinely worked behind enemy lines, out of uniform to perform operations against targets. Doing these things has not classified you as a terrorist. (They all tend to be punishable by death, and don't qualify to be a prisoner of war though.)

What I ask is, if these guys are terrorists for trying to blow up our government HQ, why aren't we in the west terrorists when we blow up other government HQs? That's why I say these men, if the allegations are true, are traitors or planned murderers, rather than terrorists.