Momins;tests from Allah;ease after difficulty

I have heard Ulema say that when natural disasters and mass deaths happen, it is not necessarily a punishment from Allah sometimes it is punishment indeed, but at other times it is a means of the mercy of Allah and sometimes it is just a test.
Therefore does that mean that what is happening to Muslims in Syria, Egypt, Burma and Bangladesh etc. might not be due to the wrath of Allah but rather it is just because Allah wants to test them or to have mercy on them (perhaps to give them such a reward in the hereafter that they would not have got under normal circumstances)?