American School Detention Center -

Syrian Detention Center

The American School was the largest local Syrian
intelligence site located in Tripoli, al-Qubba district.

The Syrian army took over the school after they entered Lebanon at the end of 1976. It comprised housing for the officers and a large prison where inmates transited before being sent to Anjar / Damascus, or tortured/killed. The detention center was used throughout the Syrian occupation, and it remained active until after the end of the armed conflicts in 1990. It is thought that people were still being detained in the American school until the withdrawal of the Syrian army from Lebanon in 2005. The number of people detained in the American school is believed to be hundreds. Testimonies of routine torture and ill-treatment have turned stories about the American School into accounts of horror. The building of the American School still exists today. It has been renewed and reopened as a school in recent years.