Britain suffered its bloodiest day in Afghanistan in almost a year when four soldiers, including a Gurkha, died and five were injured in three separate attacks across the south of the country.

In the worst incident on Thursday, a suicide bomber on a motorcycle targeted a patrol of Gurkha riflemen and military police as they dismounted from vehicles with members of the Afghan Army in a bazaar in Gereshk, Helmand province.

One soldier from 1st Battalion the Royal Gurkha Rifles and another from 173 Provost Company, 3rd Regiment, Royal Military Police died in the explosion. Three other soldiers received minor injuries and returned to work. At least 21 Afghan civilians were killed and more than 20 injured.

Earlier that day Corporal Sean Binnie, 22, from the Black Watch, 3rd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Scotland, died from a single gunshot wound during a firefight while on a joint patrol with the Afghan Army near Musa Qala. Elsewhere in the province, a fourth soldier was killed when a roadside bomb exploded in the path of his patrol vehicle near Sangin. He was from 2nd Battalion the Rifles. Two soldiers in the vehicle were injured.

The killings bring to 157 the number of British servicemen and women to die in Afghanistan since the invasion started in 2001. The toll is moving closer to the 179 UK military personnel who died in Iraq over the past six years.

Brigadier Tim Radford, commander of Task Force Helmand, said: “It has been a very sad day and we have lost some dear friends and colleagues; all of them brave, committed and professional soldiers. We will each take some quiet moments to honour those who have died and then we will carry on with our tasks. These attacks were indiscriminate and uncoordinated and serve only to harden our determination and resolve.” A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said there was no intelligence to suggest that the attacks were co-ordinated.

The casualty toll on Thursday was the worst in a 24-hour period for British forces in Afghanistan since June 17 last year, when four soldiers, including Corporal Sarah Bryant, 26, were killed.

The soldiers’ families have been informed.

Southern Afghanistan, where 8,300 British troops are based, is the centre of the Taleban-led insurgency. President Obama has ordered 10,000 US Marines to join the fight there over the next few weeks to reverse gains by the Taleban.

Brigadier Radford will be given an extra 700 British troops for four months to provide additional security for the presidential elections on August 20. He will be able to make use of the reinforcements only until the end of October, by which time his brigade’s tour will be over.

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