Taliban militants in Pakistan's restive tribal belt captured three US military choppers while they were being shipped in a dismantled state from Peshawar to Jalalabad in Afghanistan and sold one of the helicopters for several hundred thousand dollars, a media report said todays.

Pakistani officials confirmed the development while the US embassy spokesperson refused to comment, saying the information 'appears to be only hearsay', The News daily reported.

Some diplomats in Islamabad were aware of the Taliban operation but were not ready to speak on record. One of the hijacked helicopters had already been sold to an unidentified customer in Afghanistan, the report said.

The components of the helicopters arrived in containers at the Karachi Port and were taken by road to Peshawar. The containers then entered the tribal areas for the journey to Afghanistan.

When the containers entered the restive Khyber Agency, Taliban stopped the convoys and took away the helicopter components. Pakistani paramilitary forces tried to confront the Taliban but 'suffered heavy losses due to darkness'.

The incident happened in the same area where Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan Tariq Azizuddin was kidnapped in February this year.

A Chinook heavy lift chopper and a Black Hawk multi-role helicopter were captured recently while a Cobra gunship helicopter was hijacked some weeks ago.

Diplomatic sources said a recent US air strike in Pakistan's tribal areas was actually an attack on the location where the components of two helicopters were stored by the Taliban.

When the Taliban first captured the Cobra helicopter, they filmed all the stolen components and supplied a CD to their allies in Afghanistan. Certain people in Farah province of western Afghanistan 'showed an interest in purchasing the Cobra helicopter and subsequently its parts were smuggled to Farah', the report said.

'Taliban sold this Cobra to an unidentified customer for several hundred thousand dollars,' it said.
 
Following the latest hijacking, Taliban have filmed all the stolen components of the Chinook and Black Hawk helicopters. The Taliban have sent the CD 'for attracting customers from neighbouring countries of Afghanistan'.

Top US military officials have demanded that Pakistan should 'start an operation in the tribal areas for the recovery of their stolen helicopters'.

They expressed concern that instead of initiating an operation against the Taliban, the new government is negotiating peace with the militants, the report said.