KABUL — Three Americans and two other international troops were killed yesterday in an attack in eastern Afghanistan, officials said.

Insurgents attacked Afghan and international forces yesterday with rocket-propelled grenades and guns, NATO forces said in a statement. The troops called in air support, forcing the militants to withdraw, the statement said.

Col. Greg Julian, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, confirmed that three of the dead were American military.

The Taliban has vowed to increase ambushes and other attacks as an additional 21,000 U.S. troops flood into Afghanistan this summer in an attempt to stem the group's resurgence and bolster security for August's presidential elections.

PAKISTAN TRIES TO RETAKE TALIBAN AREA

ISLAMABAD — Pakistani troops backed by attack helicopters stepped up an operation to push the Taliban farther away from the capital yesterday, saying they killed at least 55 fighters. But the government was resisting Western pressure to expand the crackdown and abandon peace talks with militants who want to impose their brand of Islam across this nuclear-armed country.

The army launched the drive to retake Buner, a poor, hilly region just 60 miles from Islamabad, on Tuesday after Taliban militants from the neighboring Swat Valley overran it under cover of a controversial peace pact.

TERRORISM SUSPECTS FEND OFF EXTRADITION

The British government has paid nearly $900,000 in legal fees for three alleged associates of Osama bin Laden who for a decade have fended off attempts by the U.S. government to extradite them, according to documents obtained by the Washington Post.

The three al-Qaida suspects were arrested in London shortly after the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed more than 200 people. British authorities pledged to extradite them swiftly to the United States to stand trial for their alleged role in the attacks.

But the cases have plodded through the British bureaucracy with no end in sight, undermining trans-Atlantic cooperation on counterterrorism and highlighting how easy it can be for international suspects to elude the reach of U.S. prosecutors.

FIJI OUSTED FROM PACIFIC ISLANDS FORUM

CANBERRA, Australia — South Pacific nations announced today that military-ruled Fiji has been suspended from the 16-nation bloc for its rejection of democracy, freedom and human rights.

Yesterday, Fiji's military ruler, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, continued to defy international pressure to announce elections, confirming that he doesn't plan to hold them for at least five years.

That set the stage for his country's ouster from the Pacific Islands Forum, which had given Fiji until yesterday to announce elections for 2009.

The suspension bars Fiji's leader and officials from taking part in forum events and cuts Fiji out of development funding until a democratic government is restored, said the forum's chairman, Toke Talagi, who is also premier of the South Pacific micro-state of Niue.

ANONYMOUS DONOR ENRICHING COLLEGES

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The University of Alaska- Anchorage has been given $7 million by a mystery donor who has now given a total of at least $81.5 million to 15 colleges run by women.

School chancellor Fran Ulmer announced the donation yesterday. University officials say $6 million will be used for scholarships for women and minorities and the rest toward a new science learning center opening next fall.

About 20,000 students are enrolled at the campus.

Michigan's Kalamazoo College and New York's Hunter College also announced gifts from the anonymous donor this week.

GETTIN' SHAGADELIC ON THE QUEEN'S LAWN

LONDON — It's being called the "royal romp."

A drunken couple was arrested Sunday for stripping off their clothes and having sex on the lawn of Windsor Castle, one of the country's most popular tourist attractions.

The arrest became top news in Britain yesterday when the bare facts of it leaked to the press.

The couple were jailed overnight for "outraging public decency," a police spokesman said.