Region | Syria
Syrian government orders closure of American school, cultural centre
The Syrian government ordered an American school and a US cultural centre in Damascus closed on Tuesday in response to a deadly US attack on a village near the Iraq border, the state-run news agency said.
- AP
- Published: 11:16 October 29, 2008
Damascus: The Syrian government ordered an American school and a US cultural centre in Damascus closed on Tuesday in response to a deadly US attack on a village near the Iraq border, the state-run news agency said.
Syria's government was reacting to an attack by U.S. troops in four helicopters that killed eight people Sunday in a building inside Syria, near the border with Iraq. The Cabinet decoded to shut the institutions at a meeting headed by Prime Minister Naji Otari.
Ministers of education and culture were instructed to implement the move, Sana said.
Outside the Damascus Community School, known popularly as the "American School," in the upscale Maliki neighbourhood, activities seemed normal.
Drivers waited outside the building to pick up the foreign, mostly Arab pupils as they left for home shortly before sunset.
Several students and a foreign teacher said they were not aware of the closure order and declined to comment further. Parents said they were to be briefed on the situation later.
A Syrian employee at the cultural centre said he expected staff to show up Wednesday since they had not been told not to.
The school and the cultural centre, which is linked to the US embassy, cater to the small American community in the Syrian capital and other foreign residents.
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