WASHINGTON: US officials arrested three Pakistani Americans on Saturday and charged them and three others with providing or conspiring to provide “material support” to the Pakistani Taliban, the Justice Department said.

“All six defendants are charged with conspiring to provide, and providing, material support to a conspiracy to murder, maim and kidnap persons overseas, as well as conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, specifically, the Pakistani Taliban,” the department said in a statement.

Three of the defendants -- including a 76-year-old man arrested in Miami and two of the three men at large in Pakistan -- “are also charged with providing material support to the Pakistani Taliban,” namely the transfer of funds to finance the group which Washington lists as a terror organization.