Afghan policeman kills two British soldiers

KABUL (Reuters) - An Afghan policeman killed two British soldiers from the NATO-led force in southern Afghanistan on Saturday before he was himself shot dead, security and coalition officials said.

The incident brought to 47 the number of foreign military personnel killed in insider attacks this year.

The gunman was returning from a security operation in Helmand with coalition soldiers when he turned his gun on them, a security source told Reuters. He killed the two soldiers and wounded three others.

A soldier returned fire, killing the attacker, a statement from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.

Britain's Ministry of Defence said the soldiers were from 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment and had been killed at a checkpoint in the south of the Nahr-e-Saraj district in Helmand province.

The gunman was believed to be a member of the 16,000-strong Afghan Local Police, a U.S.-trained militia separate from the police. Training of new recruits was suspended this month following a rise in insider attacks.

The deaths bring to 430 the number of British military fatalities in Afghanistan since operations began there in 2001. Some 390 of the fatalities were in combat.

Britain has some 9,500 troops in Afghanistan, the second largest foreign force in the country after the United States, and plans to withdraw the bulk of its soldiers by the end of 2014.

(Reporting by Amie Ferris-Rotman in Kabul and Tim Castle in London; Editing by Kevin Liffey)