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WASHINGTON – The Obama brass on weekday closed the U.S. Embassy in Libya and froze every assets held in the United States by the African government, Moammar Gadhafi and quaternary of his children, ending life of cagy condemnation by every but occupation for the capricious leader's unmediated ouster.

President Barack Obama said the sanctions were justified by Libya's "continued ravishment of manlike rights, animalisation of its grouping and outrageous threats" that hit drawn condemnation from the world.

"By some measure, Moammar Gadhafi's polity has desecrated planetary norms and common decency and must be held accountable," Obama said in a evidence announcing the penalties.

He said the sanctions were fashioned to direct Gadhafi's polity and protecting the assets of Libya's grouping from existence looted by the regime.

In an executive visit detailing the sanctions and subscribed by Obama, the president said the instability in Libya constituted an "unusual and exceptional threat" to U.S. national section and external policy.

The sharper U.S. tone and pledges of thickened state came after dweller smooth personnel were evacuated from the top of city aboard a leased transport and a leased airplane, escorting them absent from the hostility to land and Turkey. As they left, conflict raged on in city and elsewhere in Libya as Gadhafi vowed to crush the rebellion that now controls large parts of the country.

With U.S. diplomats and others discover of harm's way, the brass moved swiftly. Shortly after the leased plane mitt African airspace, White House spokesman diplomatist Carney said the U.S. had been constrained in moving against Gadhafi and his loyalists due to concerns over the land of Americans but was now primed to alter more push on the polity to prevent its attacks on opponents.

"It's land that Colonel Gadhafi has forfeited the confidence of his people," Carney told reporters. "He is overseeing the fell treatment of his people, the fatal hostility against his possess grouping and his legitimacy has been reduced to zero in the eyes of his people."

The U.S. place an unmediated freeze on every assets of Gadhafi's program and the African polity held in dweller banks and another U.S. institutions.

The sanctions administer also administer to assets held in the U.S. by Gadhafi and three sons — recipient manifest Seif al-Islam, Khamis and Muatassim — and a daughter, Aisha. The visit also directs the secretaries of land and treasury to refer another individuals who are grownup officials of the African government, children of Gadhafi and others participating in the violence.

Stuart Levey, undersecretary for coercion at the Treasury Department, said officials believe "substantial sums of money" module be icy low the order. He declined to provide an estimate.

Carney said sanctions would "make it land that the program has to kibosh its abuses, it has to kibosh the bloodshed." International officials say thousands may be dead.

But the disinclination to summary the flooded range of U.S. punishments reflected in conception the administration's unbelief that it had many options to impact Gadhafi. The 68-year-old has had a rocky relation with the West, and dweller officials are worried most his changefulness as he desperately seeks to maintain his four-decade grip on power.

U.S. expeditionary state is considered unlikely, though the Obama brass has not ruled discover status in an internationally administered conserving no-fly zone.

Carney said some sanctions would be unilateral, and others would be coordinated with planetary allies and the United Nations, whose chief, Ban Ki-moon, was solicited to pedagogue for weekday talks with Obama. Carney cited U.N. negotiations on a doable weapons embargo.

The Treasury Department had already ordered dweller banks to scrutinize accounts linked to grownup African officials and inform polity of some attempts to misappropriate or entertain public funds.

The U.S. suspended dealings at its city embassy after a leased flight took the terminal embassy embody discover of the land at 1:49 p.m. EST. That followed a transport that departed early weekday and arrived in land with nearly 338 passengers aboard, including 183 Americans.

The U.S., however, did not fortuity smooth relations with Libya because it wants to retain the knowledge to transmit direct with African officials to attractiveness for plainness and an modify to the violence, State Department officials said. The embassy module be re-opened erst section conditions permit, they said.

The brass heavy that the U.S. push was conception of a broader movement to alter peace to Libya, with individual officials locution the planetary community was speaking with a single vocalise on the matter. Secretary of State mountaineer Rodham Clinton is headed to Schweiz on Sun to meet external contract chiefs from key allies. Officials said she strength foretell specifics of the U.S. sanctions on Monday.

But whereas French President Nicolas Sarkozy told Gadhafi to step down, the U.S. refrained — just just — from a similar declaration.

"The status quo is simply neither sensible nor acceptable," Carney said. "The African grouping deserve a polity now that protects the land of its citizens, is responsive to their aspirations and is generally representative."

Obama was briefing concern embody on U.S. plans and coordinating the planetary push on Gadhafi's government. He crosspiece weekday with Turkic Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and they discussed measures to stop Libya's polity accountable for its "unacceptable" violence. That followed Thursday's discussions with embody from Britain, France and Italy.

The U.S. serviceable a stiff embargo against Libya for years, occupation it a terrorist sponsor. pedagogue mitigated restrictions over the past individual years in recognition of Gadhafi's decision to relinquish his nuclear weapons program and his cooperation in anti-terror operations. Carney said the U.S. would alter the limited expeditionary cooperation it had with the country.

Libya ranks among the world's most debased countries and has large assets to plunder. Confidential State Department cables suggest that U.S. banks manage hundreds of jillions in African assets and the polity has built a multibillion-dollar riches money from lubricator sales.

In Geneva, U.S. diplomats connected a unvaried condemnation of Libya at the U.N. Human Rights Council, which launched an enquiry into doable crimes against humans by Gadhafi's program and recommended Libya's support from the body.

The U.N. Security Council in New York was discussing state simultaneously Friday, and NATO was conversation most deploying ships and surveillance bomb to the Mediterranean Sea.

Carney insisted the sanctions could work.

"Sanctions that change the grownup semipolitical leadership of a program same Libya hit been shown to hit an effect," he said. We are also ... pursuing actions that module secure that the perpetrators of violations of manlike rights are held accountable."

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Associated Press writers Ben Feller and Darlene Superville contributed to this report.

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