AMMAN: US ally Jordan said on Monday it was expelling Syria’s ambassador for accusing the kingdom of backing Syrian rebels, prompting Damascus to retaliate by barring Jordan’s top diplomat.

A Jordanian Foreign Ministry statement gave Syrian Ambassador Bahjat Suleiman, a former general and intelligence chief, 24 hours to leave. It said he had violated diplomatic protocol by posting repeated comments on social media that criticized Jordan and its Gulf allies.

“Mr. Suleiman used the territory of the kingdom as a platform to level unfounded accusations in more than one statement and post...this was despite repeated warnings for a long while,” the statement on state news agency Petra said.

In a tit-for-tat move, neighboring Syria declared Jordan’s charge d’affaires in Damascus persona non grata in response for what it said was an unjustified move to expel its ambassador, Syrian state television said.

Jordanian officials said the charge d’affaires was not currently in Syria.

Jordan has avoided publicly supporting Syrian rebels fighting to overthrow Assad, calling instead for a political solution to a war that has cost over 100,000 lives.

Jordan has harbored more than one million refugees from neighboring Syria’s civil war.

Suleiman has accused Jordan in his posts of hosting radicals sent to fight President Bashar Assad’s forces and of providing a haven for hundreds of Syrian Army defectors training them with Saudi help to go back and join rebels.

“These insults against Jordan and its Arab allies are a flagrant breach of diplomatic norms and treaties,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Sabah Al-Rafia told state media.

Suleiman allowed his followers on Facebook to leave comments strongly critical of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states and ridiculing Jordanian officials who attacked Assad.