BAGHDAD -- Iraq has deployed thousands of reinforcements along its border with Syria to prevent insurgents from crossing the desert frontier.

In addition, the government said yesterday that it has provided Syria with evidence linking Iraqis there to bombings.

Extra police were sent to the border this week on the prime minister's orders in response to the government's assertion that former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party based in Syria planned and financed last month's attacks against the foreign and finance ministries, said Maj. Gen. Tariq Youssef, the police commander in western Iraq.

Iraq is seeking the extradition of two suspects, but Syria has refused, demanding to see proof of their involvement.
The Aug. 19 truck bombings outside the government ministries in Baghdad killed about 100 people. Iraq has blamed an alliance between al-Qaida in Iraq and the outlawed Baath Party.

Iraq's post-Saddam government has for years sought the handover of former Baath Party officials who fled to Syria after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Iraqi officials say Damascus allows them to live and engage in political activity in Syria.

Iraq's foreign minister gave a U.S. congressional delegation led by Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan a tour of the shattered ministry building yesterday.

The American delegation also met with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who a day earlier accused Syria

of sheltering the bombing suspects and appealed to the U.N. Security Council

to investigate and set up

an international tribunal

to try those accused of

involvement.

Yesterday, al-Maliki stressed to the visiting Americans that Iraq would not tolerate interference by any nation in Iraq's affairs, according to a statement from his office.

Meanwhile, a roadside bomb struck an Iraqi police patrol last night in Mosul, killing three officers and wounding four civilian bystanders, police said.