[neilcrj]

The only difference between your definition and that of the parent is that you explicitly deny the existence of state terrorism, and I don't think that is an improvement.

I think we would all be better off separating terrorism (a tactic) from identity (organization/state). Then we could categorize militant groups as whatever you want: state, statelet, militia, guerrilla force, freedom fighters, caliphate, NGO or whatever and separately discuss their tactics with respect to whether they commit acts of terrorism.

[ufmace]

By my definition, violence carried out by the state is not terrorism because it's a different tactic.

The message sent by terrorist actions is that your state is illegitimate because it cannot protect you from our tiny little group. It makes no sense for the state to send this message to its own citizens - it's goal is the opposite, by definition. If a state is directly trying to send the message to citizens of a foreign state that their state can't protect them from you, that's ordinary warfare.