Oil production has been suspended for several days at three oil fields in Libya after an armed militia shut off pipelines, the state-owned National Oil Company said Wednesday.

At least 11 people were beheaded Wednesday in an attack on a checkpoint controlled by Libyan military strongman Khalifa Haftar south of Tripoli, a spokesman for his forces said.

The two main rivals in conflict-ridden Libya agreed Tuesday to a ceasefire and committed to holding elections that French President Emmanuel Macron said would take place in spring 2018.

Macron said Libya's U.N.-backed Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj and Khalifa Haftar, the military commander based in the east of the vast country, had shown "historic courage" in talks outside Paris.

France is hosting a rare meeting on Tuesday between Libya's U.N.-backed Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj and military strongman Khalifa Haftar who backs a rival administration in the east.

Forces commanded by a Libyan military strongman fighting to oust jihadists from second city Benghazi may have committed war crimes, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.

A convoy carrying Libya's contested unity government chief, Fayez al-Sarraj, and other top officials came under heavy gunfire Monday in Tripoli, but they survived unharmed, spokesmen for his administration said.

Rival powers in Libya have agreed to form a committee to explore amending a U.N.-backed deal to end the country's political turmoil, Egypt announced on Wednesday after hosting talks.

Forces loyal to Libyan Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar battling jihadists around second city Benghazi said Wednesday they had taken one of the last remaining strongholds of the militants.

Haftar's self-declared Libyan National Army (LNA) "liberated all of Qanfouda", an area 15 kilometres (nine miles) west of the centre of Benghazi, spokesman Ahmed al-Mesmari posted on Facebook.

Protesters who shut off two Libyan oil pipelines, one for more than two years, have lifted their blockade, paving the way for a production boost, the National Petroleum Company said.

Algerian militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar, one of al-Qaida's key allies in North Africa, is thought to have been killed in a French air strike, a U.S. official said Monday.

The official, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, confirmed a report in the Wall Street Journal that U.S. intelligence had helped France target the jihadist.