Five army intelligence soldiers and five others Sahwa Forces were killed in two separate attacks west of Baghdad on Saturday, while others shot dead five anti-Qaeda troops north of the Iraqi capital.

Five army intelligence soldiers and five others Sahwa Forces were killed in two separate attacks west of Baghdad on Saturday, while others shot dead five anti-Qaeda troops north of the Iraqi capital, police and doctors said.

One group of soldiers was driving near the site of a long-running anti-government protest when they were stopped by gunmen. They shot one of the gunmen, wounding him, and clashes broke out in which four of the soldiers were killed and another wounded, a police lieutenant colonel and a doctor said.

Gunmen also killed one soldier and wounded another in a similar incident involving a second vehicle in the same area, the same sources said.

Militants also killed five Sahwa anti-Qaeda members in an attack, on a checkpoint south of Tikrit, which lies north of the Iraqi capital, a second police lieutenant colonel and a doctor said.

For his part, Iraqi Prime Minister stated Saturday that sectarian strife has returned to Iraq from elsewhere in the region.

Sectarian strife "came back to Iraq because it began in another place in this region," Maliki said in televised remarks after four days of erupting violence that killed more than 200 people in the country.

Saturday’s attacks come amid a wave of violence that began on Tuesday when security forces moved in against anti-government protesters near the northern town of Hawijah, sparking clashes that left 53 people dead.