US officials announced Wednesday the arrests of three international arms traffickers for conspiring to supply Colombia's Marxist FARC rebels with weapons intended to kill Americans.

Cristian Vintila, 44, Virgil Flaviu Georgescu, 42, and Massimo Romagnoli, 43, were arrested in Montenegro on Monday and Tuesday, and charged with terrorism offenses in New York, officials said.

All three, who are still in Montenegro, were charged in Manhattan on Tuesday with conspiracy to kill Americans and conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist organization.

If extradited to the United States, put on trial and convicted they would face a maximum sentence of life in prison and 15 years for each charge respectively.

US prosecutors say they conspired to sell pistols, machine guns and anti-aircraft cannons between May and October this year, knowing they could be used by the FARC against US personnel.

They were arrested following a DEA operation in which they allegedly agreed to supply the weapons on the understanding that they would be used to kill Americans and shoot down US aircraft.

FARC has about 8,000 fighters and is the largest of the guerrilla groups waging Latin America's longest-running armed conflict.

It is currently locked in dialogue with Colombian government negotiators trying to end a five-decade conflict.

US officials described Vintila as a Romania-based weapons trafficker, Romagnoli as a Europe-based weapons trafficker and Georgescu as a Romania-based weapons broker.