Suspected Sunni Muslim militants killed four state-backed Sunni fighters in Iraq yesterday, security sources said, apparently viewing them as collaborators with the Shi’ite-led government of a nation plagued by sectarian hatred.

Sunni-Shi’ite tensions in Iraq have been amplified by the conflict between mostly Sunni rebels and President Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite-dominated forces in neighbouring Syria.

The four ‘Sahwa’ militia fighters were killed in an attack on their headquarters on the outskirts of Garma, nine kilometres east of Falluja, a city in the western province of Anbar.

Gunmen also ambushed and kidnapped 10 Sunni policemen near Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, a Sunni heartland bordering Syria.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but Sunni militant groups have been behind previous violence targeting security forces in a campaign to destabilise the Baghdad government, which they reject as illegitimate.

When Sunni-Shi’ite bloodshed was at its height in 2006-2007, Anbar was in the grip of al-Qaeda’s local affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq, which has regained strength in recent months.

Sahwa or ‘Awakening fighters are Sunni tribesmen who helped US troops subdue al-Qaeda in 2006. They are now on the government payroll and are often targeted by Sunni militants.

In other violence, tribesmen clashed with security forces and set four of their vehicles ablaze after a woman and three of her young children were killed in an army raid north of Ramadi.