There is a difference.
An INSURGENT is someone who is a citizen of an occupied country who disagrees with the occupation, and who takes up arms against the occupation.
For Americans... the colonists who fought against England during the Revolutionary War would be like insurgents.
The insurgents in Iraq are Iraqis who want America and the coalition out of Iraq, and they are the guys who will fight the coalition in the hopes of kicking out the occupation.
TERRORISTS are a different creature - a beast.
Terrorists can be either citizens of an occupied country or foreigners who come into the occupied country for the sole purpose of caushing death and destruction.
Where terrorists differ from insurgents is that it is not a love for a homeland or a desire to be a sovereign nation that drives them - it is a love for power and control, and a willingness - or even a compulsion - to cause as much death and destruction as possible. Not only to the occupation forces, but to the citizens of the occupied country who stand in the way of their assumption of total power.
An insurgent who becomes willing to kill innocent men, women and children - for whatever reason - becomes a terrorist.
At this point in Iraq, it is fair to say all the violence against Iraqis - the car bombings, the chlorine bombs, the torture, the murder, the kidnappings - is done by terrorists.
Most terrorists in Iraq are either Al Qaeda Sunnis (and most of them are foreigners and all of them take their direction from foreigners) or Iraqis who are in cohoots with Iran and want to turn Iraq into an oppressive, Shia dominated and controlled state, or Iran-backed foreigners out to help the Iraqi Shia who are in Iran's pocket.
There was a time the US was fighting both insurgents and terrorists.
Now, the US is mainly fighting terrorists.
And the insurgents, who once accepted help from the terrorists, have realized that the terrorists want the coalition out of Iraq - not so Iraq is a free, sovereign nation, but so they can gain power over the Iraqi people with their extremist religious, nutjob "Islamic State" (ie: Taliban or worse).
So now many insurgents, tired of the terrorists terrorizing (and killing) innocent Iraqis, and imposing bizarre rules and strict punishments (no smoking or they'll cut your fingers off, give them your daughters to use as sex slaves or they'll burn your house down and kill you, etc), have decided to fight the terrorists, alongside the Americans and coalition forces.
I guess there came a point where the Americans and the insurgents realized they had similar goals and objectives.
You see, the insurgents want the coalition to leave. But they also want the terrorists to leave - even more than wanting the coalition to leave.
But the coalition cannot leave until Iraq is cleared of the terrorists, and the Iraqi army and police are ready to fully take over security to keep Iraq clear of the terrorists.
The insurgents realized that Americans were not there to kill them, but were trying to protect them.
And Americans realized the insurgents didn't want to kill Americans as much as they wanted their country free of an occupation.
Perfect.
The coalition forces and the insurgents all have the same goals - they want Iraq to be free of terror and extremism, the government to work for the people of Iraq, and the US and coalition forces to then handover the security and policing of Iraq to Iraq so they can go home.
So now in several areas of Iraq, the citizens of Iraq are joining the Iraq Army and the local police forces, as well as setting up "neighborhood watch" units. The US Army and Marines are working with all of these groups - training them, helping them set up security centers, helping them rebuild their communities, and helping them root out the terrorists.
It's working, too!
Al Anbar is a good example. In Ramadi and Fallujah, the local citizens are helping the local police and coalition forces find terrorists and bombs and weapons caches. The terrorists are being arrested or driven out of these towns, and gradually, the people are regaining their lives - children can play, adults can go to the market, etc.
Don't get me wrong - there are still terror elements trying to regain their foothold in these cities. But the people of these cities are standing strong against the terrorists, because when all is said and done, they want their lives and their cities back - they want their children to be safe, and they want better lives for themselves and their families.
Once the cities are secure and rebuilt, and the police are trained and are fully taking charge of the security for these cities, then the local citizens want the US forces out.
This makes sense.
And once their job is done, the US forces will be glad to turn the cities completely over to the local citizens, and can leave, proud that they've helped the people they came to Iraq to help.
Here are some blog posts that you might be interested in - 1 written by a soldier and 1 written by a Baghdad blogger:
ISF Primer
Great Baghdad's view
