Member of Iraqi Parliament Hassan al-Sanid, a close ally of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, announced that Iraq may sever ties with the Syrian government if it continues to refuse extradition demands.

Iraq and Syria recalled their respective ambassadors in August after Iraq issued demands for a large number of former Ba’athists believed to be living in exile in Syria. Iraq blamed the Ba’athists, and later the Syrian government itself, for a massive bomb attack in Baghdad in August. Syria denied the charges and said they could find no evidence that the people in question were even in Syria.

The Iraqi government has been broadcasting confessions this week from a series of detainees it says were involved in a second bombing attack in October. The confessions purport to show that these detainees came from Syria.

A Ba’athist nation itself, and also one housing over a million Iraqi refugees since the war began, Syria has been reticent to hand over people simply on the say-so of the current Iraqi government. It seems the tensions will continue to rise.

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