Seventeen armed supporters of Libya's ousted leader Muammar Gaddafi were captured after an attack on a police post in the southern town of Sebha on Friday, a local security official said.

Ahmed al-Atteibi, head of the town's military council, told AFP a police guard and two comrades were killed in the attack, during which the assailants seized vehicles and weaponry.

He said the assailants were captured in a fierce battle and confessed to being supporters of the Kadhafi regime, ousted in Libya's 2011 revolution, and to having infiltrated from abroad with the aim of setting up a base in the south.

Armed forces spokesman Colonel Ali Shikhi said the group were transferred to prisons in Tripoli.