Syrian rebels versus insurgents

I was reading an article either in the Washington Post or the New York Times about the situation in Aleppo and Fu`a and Kafrayya. So the article mentioned something about the Syrian rebels in East Aleppo and when it came to the section about the burning of the busses and the murder of the bus driver, it referred to the culprits as "insurgents" (someone should look the article up for me, as I have to go now).  So they create a fake distinction between Syrian rebels and Syrian insurgents just to not detract from the romanticized image that they have constructed about their moderate Jihadi Syrian rebels.