DAMASCUS, SYRIA — Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad ordered the immediate closure of all Syrian airports and airfields to U.S. missiles today, fulfilling a threat he issued after U.S. missile strikes on the country.

In a ceremony at the presidential palace attended by most of the Syrian government, Assad signed the ban to rapturous applause, only briefly punctuated when several generals prematurely stopped clapping and were summarily executed.

"We don't want these missiles here," Assad told the cheering crowd. "We don't need these missiles here. We are perfectly capable of destroying our own infrastructure without these foreign missiles coming over here to do a job that Syrians are perfectly capable of doing themselves."

To illustrate his point, he ordered his Shabiha militia to immediately massacre all remaining Syrian soldiers at the Shayrat air base.

Assad added that he planned to extend the missile ban to the United Kingdom, France, Israel, and most of Western Europe.

"We only want to admit missiles into our country that will help our people, like those launched from Russia, Iran, and hopefully China," Assad told reporters.

Assad's decision was immediately condemned by a number of human rights groups.

"This impacts the most vulnerable group in America today: the Navy's surface fleet," said Neill O'Connor, a spokesman for Amnesty International. "All these poor sailors want to do is feel like they're actually part of a war and tell their sweethearts how much danger they're in before going back to the galley for mid-rats."

The Syrian Civil Liberties Union vowed to oppose what it called a "racist ban," and lawyers for the group were traveling to military bases, airports, surface-to-air missile sites, and bunkers on Monday. Interestingly, the Assad regime did not attempt to thwart their travel in any way, and in some instances, bussed them to military facilities for their scheduled protests.