Insurgents vs Terrorists -- Is there a difference?

[Mondor]

In WWII the Allies were trying to stop factories in occupied France from producing war material for the German army. They bombed the factory a number of times, but found that it was still producing significant amounts of war material.

To finally reduce factory output to zero they bombed the workers homes near the factory. The thinking was that if you destroyed the worker's housing then they would no longer be able to work at the factory.

The intent was to stop the factory's output. They did that by bombing the workers. This resulted in destroyed homes and civilian deaths. Using your definition this would have been a terrorist attack. I have some difficulty accepting that line of reasoning.

[Steve Blair]

In WWII the Allies were trying to stop factories in occupied France from producing war material for the German army. They bombed the factory a number of times, but found that it was still producing significant amounts of war material.

To finally reduce factory output to zero they bombed the workers homes near the factory. The thinking was that if you destroyed the worker's housing then they would no longer be able to work at the factory.

The intent was to stop the factory's output. They did that by bombing the workers. This resulted in destroyed homes and civilian deaths. Using your definition this would have been a terrorist attack. I have some difficulty accepting that line of reasoning.

Not necessarily. Targeting means of production (to include the workers) is a much different thing from blowing up a school bus or commercial airliner to protest the working conditions of those same workers. Consider that the average terrorist group practices very little in the way of target discrimination (often going for the easiest targets available...no matter what they are). A terrorist group would have set off a firebomb in a market nearby during peak shopping hours to protest the working conditions rather than launch a bomber raid (which has a fair amount of early warning) against the factory or nearby housing to stop production. They would also continue attacking the area as long as they could produce casualties.