Col. Moammar Gaddafi

UPDATE 8:00 P.M. PST:  President Obama signed an executive order Friday night freezing assets held by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and four of his children in the United States. The Treasury Department says the sanctions against the Gaddafi family also apply to the Libyan government.

Scroll down for video of Libyan U.N. official denouncing Gaddafi as a "mad man."

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As protests in Libya continue and Col. Moammar Gaddafi refuses to step down, the United Nations Security Council has begun to act in an attempt to end the violence.

A draft resolution currently being discussed by the UN Security Council includes measures like travel bans, freezing assets of Libyan officials and arms embargos, according to The Guardian. The Guardian also says UK officials have threatened Gaddafi and his supporters with the possibility of being charged for war crimes.

The Guardian elaborated on what might happen next with the Security Council:

A vote on the UN resolution is not expected before next week. EU officials also discussed the possible imposition of punitive measures against the Gaddafi government, but stressed that any action would be led by decisions taken by the security council.

The steps under discussion fall a long way short of steps called for by some human rights groups, which wanted the UN to declare a no-fly zone over Libya if the regime continued to use warplanes to bomb or strafe demonstrators. Mention of a no-fly zone was removed from the Franco-British draft , and an emergency Nato meeting in Brussels did not even discuss it as a contingency measure.

European officials said Russia and China would veto any such suggestions in the security council. They were also anxious about the timing of any punitive action, hoping to avoid a backlash against the many thousands of foreign workers still in the country, while seeking to maximise incentives for Gaddafi's supporters to defect.

The White House also said they’re finalizing their own sanctions against Libya. On Friday, the U.S. suspended all embassy operations as Americans attempted to flee the country. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the U.S. has also suspended what military aid they were giving to Libya.

The Washington Post reported:

[Carney] condemned the "gross and systematic human rights abuses now being committed" by the Gaddafi regime and said the United States was "utilizing the full extent of its intelligence capability" to monitor those actions.

"We have decided to move forward with unilateral sanctions, which we are in the process of finalizing, coordinated sanctions with our European allies, and multilateral efforts to hold the Libyan government accountable through the United Nations," Carney said.

"We are initiating a series of steps at the unilateral level and the multilateral level to pressure the regime in Libya to stop killing its own people," he added. "This is a first step, and obviously we continue to review our options going forward."

Carney also said President Obama will meet with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday. Ki-moon urged the UN Security Council to take “concrete action,” saying there were “grave concerns about the nature and scale of the conflict.”

Such harsh reaction comes after Gaddafi addressed a crowd of supporters in Tripoli’s Green Square on Friday.

"We will continue to fight. We will defeat them. We will die here on Libyan soil," the longtime Libyan dictator reportedly told the crowd in the address, which was carried on state television. He also said: "If my people and the Arab people don't love Gaddafi I don't deserve to live."

Al Jazeera reported:

"We can defeat any aggression if necessary and arm the people," Gaddafi said, in footage that was aired on Libyan state television on Friday.

"I am in the middle of the people.. we will fight … we will defeat them if they want … we will defeat any foreign aggression.

"Dance … sing and get ready … this is the spirit … this is much better than the lies of the Arab propaganda," he said.

The speech, which also referred to Libya's war of independence with Italy, appeared to be aimed at rallying what remains of his support base, with specific reference to the country's youth.

Friday seemed to mark a turning point for protesters as CNN reported that protesters overtook Libyan’s port city of Brega, which is home to one of the country’s major oil terminals.

Sparked by the capture of other Libyan cities, protesters also edged closer to Tripoli, causing violence between militia and uprisers to escalate. Witnesses say Gaddafi’s supporters in the army opened fire on thousands of fire on protesters coming out of mosques on Friday, demanding Gaddafi’s resignation.

Al Jazeera also reported that people in eastern Libya, where anti-Gaddafi sentiment has spread and protesters seem to have control of the region, were still anxious about Gaddafi’s next move.

People do say that they have broken the fear factor, that they have made huge territorial gains,” the Al Jazeera correspondent in Eastern Libya, who was left unnamed for security reasons, said. “Yet there's no real celebration or euphoria that the job has been done.”