The maids who once swept the white marble floors at the Libyan ambassador's residence here have gone home to the Philippines, their visas expired now that their boss, Ali Suleiman Aujali, has quit his job. The driver is gone, too. Pretty soon, Mr. Aujali figures, the State Department will repossess the official license plates on the shiny black Mercedes and Audi parked in his garage.

But Mr. Aujali is hanging on, trapped in a diplomatic no man's land.

The embassy he ran for more than two years — a seventh-floor suite in the Watergate, overlooking the Potomac — was shut down by the State Department last week.