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I'm not familiar at all with these stories. I should read about them.

I think there's a fairly clear delineation between a terrorist and a freedom fighter. A terrorist's goal is to sow terror among the target entity. It does so by random indiscriminate violence (and barbarism). The more random the target is and the more barbaric the attack is the better. 9/11 is a good example. A terrorist has no moral qualms. The goal justifies anything. It's almost certain that the terrorist is losing in any measurable objective. E.g. the Chechen attacks in Moscow leading to Russia essentially levelling Chechnia, or the Sri Lankans destroying the Tamils. It's kind of a lost cause made worse by violence.

A freedom fighter, to contrast, will weigh the morality of their actions vs. what they can accomplish and other non-violent alternatives. They will weigh the violence they use, their targets, against specific "freedom" goals. They will not sacrifice their own humanity to pursue their goal. They have some reasonable chance of achieving some real "freedom" goals out of the targeted acts of violence. WW-II Partisans come to mind.



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