Kabul, Aug 17 (DPA) 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 a 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.