I never entirely understood what terrorists are trying to accomplish. They are basically saying "Leave us alone!", but they don't identify themself. They say "Don't interfere with our plans!", but they don't tell you what those plans actually are. They (usually) say "We fight for the people!", by ensuring that other nations and peoples view them with distrust and hatred. They try to coerce cooperation by random acts of violence which rarely have anything to do with actual policy change or the systems responsible for their problems.

Their whole strategy just seems very poorly thought out to me.