> Terrorism is untargeted violence against civil population
That definition might have been true immediately after 2001-09-11, but now the term has been diluted and coopted to cover any anti-government military action. Arguably this is just double-speak; I consider this term to be borderline meaningless at this point.
See for example Russia/Georgia [1], or more recently the "terrorists" opposing the Syrian government [2].
There's no good reason to participate in it and make matters worse. We virtually universally denounce terrorism exactly because it is indiscriminately harming innocent people just to scare others, which is considered immoral by the majority of modern moral systems. Destroying military objects in the course of war, while being, as any part of the war is, regrettable course of events - does not carry nearly the same moral stigma.
Some people participating in Syria war are undoubtedly terrorists - ISIS and al-Qaeda make no secret of its adherence to the terrorist tactics, among other war crimes they commit - others are guerilla, or self-defence forces (e.g. Peshmerga). One should not confuse those if one wants to understand what is going on.
When words get diluted like that, you can easily counter through elaboration and specificity, as the parent did. In doing so, you can retain the meaning as you see fit.
All people are free to define their own definitions. In fact, we all do, without exception: no two people hold identical definitions for the same words. The only thing that matters is the ability to be understood, ideally to a high degree. Elaboration on what you mean provides for that even in the case of widespread dilution.
That definition might have been true immediately after 2001-09-11, but now the term has been diluted and coopted to cover any anti-government military action. Arguably this is just double-speak; I consider this term to be borderline meaningless at this point.
See for example Russia/Georgia [1], or more recently the "terrorists" opposing the Syrian government [2].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Russo-Georgian_diplomatic... [2]: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-lauria/who-is-a-terrorist...