Shut Down Until Further Notice

IF MUAMMAR GADDAFI HAS ANY FRIENDS LEFT IN the world, they are keeping a decidedly low profile. After refusing once again to hand over two suspects in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, Gaddafi discovered just how hard U.N. sanctions could bite. On Wednesday, after the World Court declined Gaddafi's request to halt the sanctions, a ban on commercial flights in and out of Libya went into effect. Cairo and Tunis ordered Libyan planes headed for their countries to turn around, and Rome even dispatched several F-104 jets to intercept a Libyan passenger plane about to enter Italian airspace.

Many countries also began expelling Libyan embassy staffers, who were forced to fly to Malta and then take the ferry to Tripoli. Some 1,000 Americans and 10,000 Europeans work in Libya, but so far, most have elected to stay. Surprisingly, nearly the whole Arab world went along with the sanctions, though some Arab diplomats complained that the U.S. had not exhausted the diplomatic game before spearheading the campaign for the embargo.

On Friday a lawyer for the two men accused of blowing up Pan Am 103 said they would be willing to stand trial in the U.S. or Britain. But he attached conditions that made a deal unlikely (e.g., intelligence officials could not question the suspects).

The embargo marks the first coordinated action by the international community against state-sponsored terrorism. If the sanctions do not work -- and the Libyans have endured so many economic hardships over the years that more pain might make little difference -- then the U.N. has the option of instituting an oil embargo. (See cover story on page 24.)