Ross that is a very topical issue; there is no clear distinction between a freedom fighter and a terrorist. There is a very good documentary series currently showing on Al jazeera that questions what the difference is. By todays standards, the allied partisan resistance fighters in WW2 would have been classed as terrorists. http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/general/2009/02/20092565012929122.html
There is no internationally agreed definition.
@unknownuser said:
Terrorism expert Walter Laqueur has counted over 100 definitions and concludes that the 'only general characteristic generally agreed upon is that terrorism involves violence and the threat of violence.' Yet terrorism is hardly the only enterprise involving violence and the threat of violence. So does war, coercive diplomacy, and barroom brawls."
@unknownuser said:
The Patriot Act defined “terrorist activity” so broadly that it encompasses virtually any deed, even if carried out under threat of death or against a brutal regime. The Patriot Act also liberalized the definition of “terrorist organizations”: In addition to the Tier I and Tier II lists of known and actual terrorist groups, a terrorist organization could now be any “group of two or more individuals, whether organized or not,” which engages in any form of “terrorist activity” thusly defined.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_terrorism