Insurgents attacked an Iraqi police station near the Syrian border early Wednesday morning and killed three policemen, including a captain, security and medical officials said.

Police managed to kill one of the gunmen who carried out the 3:00 am (0000 GMT) attack in the town of Al-Qaim, in the mostly Sunni Anbar province west of Baghdad, and wounded another. A third shooter escaped.

"Three police -- two policemen and a captain -- were killed when several armed men attacked the police station at about 3:00 am," said police Captain Mohanned Mukhlif Hamadi.

"The attack was followed by clashes between policemen at the station and the attackers. One of the gunmen was killed and another wounded, but one escaped."

A medic at Ramadi hospital confirmed that the facility had received the body of one of the gunmen and had treated the one that was hurt.

Anbar province was home to a violent Sunni Arab insurgency in the aftermath of the 2003 US-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein, one that only abated after Sunni tribes sided with the US military against Al-Qaeda from late-2006 onwards.

Wednesday's violence comes around three weeks after US troops completed their withdrawal from Iraq, leaving security in the country solely in the hands of domestic forces.