Maliki points to Syria

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki pointed a finger yesterday at the civil war in neighbouring Syria for the return of sectarian strife to Iraq, as a five-day wave of violence has killed 215 people.
And the head of the Sahwa anti-Qaeda militia forces threatened war on militants if those who have killed Iraqi soldiers are not turned over.
Sectarian strife "came back to Iraq, because it began in another place in this region," Maliki said in televised remarks.
A civil war pitting mainly Sunni Muslim rebels against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a member of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, has killed more than 70,000 people.
In Iraq, Sunni-Shia sectarian violence, which peaked in 2006 and 2006, killed tens of thousands.