Kandahar, Afghanistan, Feb 19 (SPA) - Taliban gunmen killed three policemen in a raid on a security post in a southern province where thousands of British troops will soon be based, police said on Sunday. "An unknown number of Taliban attacked the post in Marja district and three policemen were killed," the deputy chief of police in the southern province of Helmand, Assadullah Shairzad, said of the Saturday night raid. A Taliban commander claimed responsibility, saying his men had captured and occupied the post before withdrawing on Sunday, according to a report of Reuters. About 3,300 British troops will be based in Helmand later this year as part of an expansion of a NATO-led peacekeeping force into the dangerous south. The first 150 combat troops of the deployment arrived last week. In a separate incident, a rocket landed near a Kabul hotel where foreigners often stay but no one was hurt in the late Saturday attack. --SPA 14 42 Local Time 11 42 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/332241