Presumably we're working on different definitions of "terrorist". I'd define a torturer, and someone who colludes in torture by a subordinate or agent, as a terrorist. I'd define someone who carries out reprisals against civilians as a terrorist. I'd define someone who sets off bombs directed at non-combatants as a terrorist.

That would apply whoever was giving them their own orders. What you seem to be saying, Ireland, is that if they were working for a government, especially one which had some underpinning of constitutionality, they wouldn't count as terrorists.

I suspect that isn't quite what you mean, since you appear to class Taliban supporters as terrorists, and the Taliban constituted the de facto government of Afghanistan, recognised as legitimate and supported by the government of its neighbour Pakistan.

I believe that there are certain acts which are criminal whoever does them, and that is what I mean by terrorism. That's a different definition from the one which would see terrorism as simply meaning any activity which is carried out by particular groups which are defined as terrorist organisations. It is both wider and narrower - it would include some actions carried out by otherwise legitimate governments, and exclude certain activities carried out by illegal organisations.