The Syrian cabinet decided yesterday to close a Damascus-based American school and a US culture center in response to a deadly raid by US helicopters near the Syrian border with Iraq, the official SANA news agency reported.

The decision came at a weekly cabinet meeting that headed by Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Naji Ottri.

Ottri asked the ministers of Education and Culture to take the needed procedures to implement the decision in coordination with the relevant circles.

During the meeting, the cabinet also decided to postpone the meeting of the High Syrian-Iraqi Committee which is due to be held in Baghdad Nov. 12 to 13.

The Syrian government seriously condemned the brutal, vicious American aggression on al-Sukkariah village in Abu Kamal which claimed eight lives of innocent citizens and wounding another.

The cabinet expressed strong denunciation and astonishment over the statements by the spokesman for the Iraqi government and his unacceptable and irresponsible justification for this heinous aggression which was launched from the Iraqi territories against a neighboring Arab country, said the report.

On Sunday, Syria summoned the US charge d'affaires to Damascus and protested against a US helicopters attack on its civilians.

Eight Syrian civilians were killed in a US helicopters attack in a Syrian farm near its border with Iraq on Sunday afternoon, said SANA.

Later, US officials explained that the raid killed a top operative of al-Qaida in Iraq who intelligence suggested was about to conduct an attack in Iraq.