Kabul  - Three British soldiers serving in a NATO-led international military force were killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan, officials said Monday.

The soldiers died Sunday during a military patrol in the Sangin district of volatile Helmand province, the British Defence Ministry said in statement.

NATO also confirmed the deaths of the soldiers in a statement issued in Kabul.

The incident occurred a day after a Taliban suicide bomber attacked NATO headquarters in the Afghan capital, killing seven Afghan civilians and wounding more than 90 other people, including several NATO soldiers.

Sunday's deaths brought to 204 the total number of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2001 when a US-led invasion ousted the fundamentalist Islamist Taliban regime.

Seven of those British soldiers were killed in the past four days, all in roadside bombings, which have become a common tactic for Taliban militants.

More than 8,000 British soldiers and 4,000 US marines have been battling the Taliban in Helmand, where the insurgents have been most active, since the beginning of July.

Together with Afghan forces, those soldiers recaptured the Nawzad district on Sunday, the Afghan Defence Ministry said in a statement. The joint forces had recaptured another district late last month while the militants still hold sway in at least three other districts in Helmand.

The aim of the new operation in the province was to flush out the militants to provide a safer environment for the local populous to vote in Thursday's presidential election.

More than 100,000 international troops and around 200,000 Afghan security forces are to provide security at polling stations throughout the country. (dpa)