This comes as Turkish troops move into the capital Tripoli to support the United Nations backed Government of National Accord.

Situated 450 kilometers east of Tripoli, Sirte was liberated from the Islamist State rebels in 2016.

It is the hometown of dictator Muammar Gaddafi whose fatal overthrow in 2011 has plunged Libya into chaos.

The GNA has not confirmed the loss of Sirte, which was announced by rebel leader Khalifa Haftar in the city of Bhengazi on Libya’s eastern border.

With Turkey moving troops in to protect the GNA and its interests in the eastern Mediterranean, Arab fears of a proxy war in Libya look more and more likely. 

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Most of them are supporters of former President Muammar Gadaffi who was ousted and killed eight years ago.

The prisoners being held in the south of the Libyan capital were rioting. They forced open the jail door and overwhelmed the guards.

Many of them were serving sentences for killings committed in the name of Muammara Gadaffi.

Since his overthrow eight years ago, Libya has suffered a security vacuum.

In 2012 more than 1 000 prisoners escaped from a jail in Benghazi.

A year later there were prison breaks in Tripoli and the western town of Zilten in which at least 146 prisoners escaped.

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