Isis launches 'Islamic police force' in Libya propaganda video

Footage shows around 12 young men driving several vans with flashing lights

Isis has frequently released videos trying to portray the group as glamorous and powerful (YouTube)

Isis has released a video purporting to show its own police force keeping law and order in Libya.

Appearing to be shot from Sirte, a stronghold of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's regime, the video shows the group trying to step into the current power vacuum in the country.

Since Gaddafi was killed in 2011 by rebels, who were backed by UK forces and other Nato members, two administrations have battled to gain control in Libya.

The elected government has fled to a dock in Tobruk to live aboard a car ferry, while in Tripoli a rump parliament dominated by Islamist militias have elected their own "prime minister", according to The Guardian.

Meanwhil, Isis has tried to assert its authority in the area.

Gunmen who trained with Isis in Libya murdered 38 tourists, most of them British, at a seaside resort in neighbouring Tunisia in June.

It also comes after the US claimed to have killed Isis' senior leader in Libya, Abu Nabil, at around the same time as the terror attacks in Paris that killed 130 people in mid-November.

The new propaganda video from the jihadist group, around 12 masked policemen stand to attention with rifles and white vans flash blue and red emergency lights as officers direct traffic.

The footage is among a string of attempts by the group to portray itself in a powerful or glamorous light, and to call on "supporters" to carry out its messages.

Yet accounts from those who have joined the group tell of soldiers using drugs, being obsessed with sex and enduring bad living conditions.