Stepping up pressure on Libyan rulers, the United States today announced freeze on $30 billion in assets of the Gaddafi regime, as the European Union mulled imposing a no-fly zone and Pentagon moved its naval and air forces near the North African country.

“As of today, at least $30 billion in government of Libya assets under US jurisdiction have been blocked. This is the largest blocking under any sanctions program ever,” Mr David Cohen, Acting Undersecretary of Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, told reporters after announcing the freeze of assets.

The Treasury moves comes days after the US President, Mr Barack Obama, slapped sanctions on the Gaddafi regime, which has been allegedly using lethal force against its own people.

Mr Cohen said there was no indication that the Libyan Government had tried to liquidate a significant amount of its assets.

“On Friday, we froze the assets of Libya’s leaders, and on Monday, $30 billion — an unprecedented quantity of resources have been seized in just over the last several days,” the US Ambassador to the UN, Ms Susan Rice, told presspersons at a White House news conference.

“On Saturday, the Security Council with the US and leadership of others moved at a speed that is, I can tell you from my experience, almost unheard of, to pass unanimously a resolution that not only imposed a travel ban, an assets freeze, and arms embargo, but referred the situation in Libya for the first time on a unanimous basis to the International Criminal Court,” she said.

“What we’re trying to do is to send a message to those around him that the cost is getting intolerable, that if you want to get out and end the bloodshed, you need to move now.

And I think that would be a powerfully delivered message by the Europeans. And also, we are looking at all other options,” the Secretary of State, Ms Hillary Clinton, said in an interview to National Public Radio.

“The decision made by NATO at the North Atlantic Council a few days ago was to direct the military command, the supreme commander in Europe, to begin prudent planning. And that runs across a full range of potential options. So there’s a lot going on,” she said.

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