KABUL, July 17 Five Nato troops died in roadside bombs in Afghanistan, the alliance said on Saturday, as international forces announced that they had foiled a terrorist attack on an upcoming conference in Kabul to be attended by leaders from more than 60 nations.

Security is being tightened across the capital for Tuesday's conference, which is attracting the heads of Nato, the United Nations and top diplomats, including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

In May, Taliban fighters had a gunbattle with security forces and militants launched a rocket that landed with a thud about 100 yards from the site of a national peace conference in the capital; three civilians, but no conference delegates, were wounded.

Acting on intelligence, a combined international and Afghan commando force captured a Taliban bomb-making expert on Friday night in Kabul, Nato said.

Neither Afghan nor Nato officials would not identify the suspect, give details of the plot or say how advanced the planning was. But the Afghan Defence Ministry said several “enemies of the people” were killed in the raid and 26 suspected insurgents were arrested.

The ministry said a special Afghan army commando unit based with US special forces outside Kabul carried out the raid in the southwestern district of Wasel Abad of Kabul.

Elsewhere, three international service members were killed by homemade bombs Saturday, including an American in eastern Afghanistan and a British soldier in the south, Nato and Britain's Defence Ministry said. A third service member died on Saturday in the south, but Nato did not disclose the nationality or any details of the attacks.

Two others — a British marine and an American service member — died in an explosion on Friday in the south, the alliance and the UK government said. Britain also said one of its airmen died in a traffic accident on Friday.

In Kandahar, an Afghan policeman was shot and killed on Saturday evening, said Mohammad Shah Farooqi, head of crime and investigation department of the province's police. So far in July, 54 international troops have died, 39 of them Americans. Homemade bombs are the leading cause of death to both troops and civilians.

To counter the threat, the US is sending $3 billion worth of detection equipment and bomb-resistant vehicles to Afghanistan, the Defence Department said earlier this month. The equipment includes tethered surveillance blimps to give troops a bird's eye view of certain areas, plus unmanned surveillance planes and Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles.—AP