[mseebach]

It's really not pedantic, it's about using the right word. Terror means fear. Assassination means killing a specific person.

Assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists has the concrete and (for the presumed perpetrators) desired effect of denying Iran the service of those persons. Instilling terror in other nuclear scientists is a much lower order side effect.

[rdtsc]

So assassinating any government officials by Iran in order to try to defend from future such assassinations of its scientists would also not be considered terrorism, as long as they claim it is a targeted response and if it happens to induce fear in the large number of government officials and others it is just a secondary effect?

[mseebach]

Certainly not any.

But if a clear causation between removing a certain actor from the game and crippling the scientist assassination program is present, I don't see why not.