Comment by echoangle
I’m not too familiar with the story but the lead sentence is “On October 12, 2000, two suicide pilots of a small bomb-laden boat pulled alongside of the USS Cole at midship, offered friendly gestures to several crew members, and detonated their explosives.”.
Could this possibly fall under Article 37 c of the Geneva convention (“The feigning of civilian, non-combatant status”)? In that case, calling it terrorism wouldn’t be too bizarre in my opinion. I’m assuming the attackers didn’t wear any uniforms or insignia.
It's hard to say. Military deception is a bit of a grey area by definition. Faking as medics or burial staff is generally regarded as an absolute no-go, but deceptive use of uniforms and so on is sometimes excused. There is a fairly extensive history of this in naval operations, where practicality dictates a whole ship has to be disguised if a deception is to be effective.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q-ship