While I think it's clear that ISIS was/is evil, I'm not sure that its as clear that those actions (or at least all of them) were terrorism. I'd define terroris

While I think it's clear that ISIS was/is evil, I'm not sure that its as clear that those actions (or at least all of them) were terrorism. I'd define terrorism as something along the lines of "using guerrilla tactics against civilian targets in order to achieve political ends". I would differentiate that from atrocities committed against a state's own people in order to keep them in line (for example Stalin's purges), human rights violations (e.g. witch trials or killing homosexuals), ethnic/religious cleansing, or guerrilla attacks against targets with legitimate strategic value. My understanding, although I am definitely not super informed on this, is that ISIS's atrocities were mostly keeping people in line, human rights abuse, and religious cleansing. Therefore I would not consider those acts to be terrorism. However, that doesn't make them any less evil.