DAMASCUS, Syria — The Syrian government ordered an American school and a U.S. cultural center in Damascus closed Tuesday in response to a deadly U.S. attack on a village near the Iraq border, the state-run news agency said.
U.S. officials said the raid killed a top operative of al-Qaeda in Iraq who intelligence suggested was about to conduct an attack in Iraq, but Syria and the Iraqi government criticized the raid.
Outside the Damascus Community School, known popularly as the “American School,” in the upscale Maliki neighborhood, 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.
The school and the cultural center, which is linked to the U.S. Embassy, cater to the small American community in the Syrian capital and other foreign residents.
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 condemned the raid Tuesday, calling it a “barbaric” act.
“This brutal crime represents a climax of state terrorism exercised by the U.S. administration,” said a Cabinet statement.
It accused the United States of violating the U.N. charter, international law and international legitimacy, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency.
U.S.-Syrian relations plummeted after the February 2005 assassination in neighboring Lebanon of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, for which many blamed Damascus. Washington pulled out its ambassador and clamped a diplomatic boycott on Syria, accusing it of destabilizing Lebanon, sending insurgents to Iraq and supporting militant anti-Israel groups Hezbollah and Hamas.
Syria, which has for years been on a State Department list of nations that it says support terrorism, denies involvement in Hariri’s assassination and calls the groups it supports legitimate resistance movements.
Also Tuesday, Syria demanded that the U.N. Security Council condemn the attack and take action against the U.S.
Iraq has said it doesn’t approve of the raid into Syria even if the U.S. claims such operations are legitimate.
Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Iraq doesn’t want its territory used for attacks in neighboring nations, but he also urged Syria to crack down on “organizations” operating on its territory that have the intention of harming Iraq.
