Syed Salahuddin
Syed Salahuddin.Reuters File

Hizbul Mujahideen chief, Syed Salahuddin, who was recently designated a 'global terrorist' by the United States, admitted to conducting attacks in India.

Salahuddin on Sunday boasted to a Pakistani television channel that he and his terror outfit have carried out attacks in India, ANI reported.

"Till now our focus was on Indian occupation forces. All the operations that we have done or are underway, we focus only on the installations of these occupational forces," Salahuddin said in an interview with Geo TV.

"We carried out a few terror attacks but after 9/11, the world scenario changed. And we realised, that if we continued to carry out terror attacks outside Kashmir, then India would get an opportunity to label Kashmir as a terror state," Salahuddin said.

Salahuddin, at a rally on Saturday in Muzaffarabad, said his fighters' attack legitimate military targets as opposed to civilians, according to Pakistani newspaper Nation.

The Hizbul Mujahideen chief, during the rally, called US President Donald Trump "crazy" for blacklisting him. He also called the Trump administration "idiotic", and a "gift to Modi."

The US announcement was made when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Washington last week.

Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists in Kashmir
People run as suspected militants offer a gun salute to Fayaz Ahmad during his funeral in QaimohReuters

"Donald Trump's decision will be thrown out if anyone challenges it in American courts. No other Western nation has endorsed what this crazy Donald Trump has done," Salahuddin said at the rally in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir's (PoK) Muzaffarabad.

Pakistan had objected to US blacklisting Salahuddin last week, stating America's action as "completely unjustified" as it involved a person "supporting the Kashmiri right to self-determination". Salahuddin, last year, had threatened to turn the Kashmir valley "into a graveyard for Indian forces".

Global terrorist tags are given to those "who have committed, or pose a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism that threaten the security of US nationals or the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States," according to a state department notification.