Image caption Rebel fighters celebrate the fall of Sirte two years ago. Lawlessness has been rife across Libya since then 
 
 Libya's state news agency says gunmen have stolen $54m (£33.5m) in an attack on a van carrying foreign and local currency for the Libyan central bank. 
 
 Ten men stopped the van as it entered the city of Sirte from the airport. The cash delivery had been flown 300 miles (500km) from the capital, Tripoli. 
 
 "The robbery is a catastrophe for the whole of Libya," Abdel-Fattah Mohammed, head of Sirte council, told Reuters. 
 
 Libya has suffered continuing lawlessness since the 2011 civil war. 
 
 Guards 'overpowered' 
 
 Libya's government has been struggling to keep control of a country full of armed militias, gangs and radical Islamists. 
 
 Reports on Monday suggested that only one security vehicle had been assigned to protect the van. 
 
 Security guards "were unable to resist the 10 attackers", the Lana news agency reported. 
 
 Some 53m Libyan dinars were taken, along with another $12m in US dollars and euros. 
 
 Two banks in Sirte were hit by robbers in July, a city official told the AFP news agency. 
 
 The attackers made off with 500,000 Libyan dinars, he said. 
 
 Sirte was the last bastion of support for Col Muammar Gaddafi in the conflict that led to his overthrow. 
 
 However the city has largely been spared the wave of violence that has swept since then. 

 TRIPOLI | 
 
 TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Gunmen stole $55 million in a heist on a van carrying local and foreign currency for the Libyan central bank on Monday, state news agency Lana said. 
 
 Ten armed men stopped the van in the coastal city of Sirte carrying 53 million Libyan dinars ($43.49 million) and foreign currency worth $12 million, Lana said. The van was coming from the airport where the cash had been flown in from Tripoli for the local central bank branch. 
 
 "The robbing is a catastrophe not just for Sirte but the whole of Libya," Abdel-Fattah Mohammed, head of Sirte council, told Reuters. He said the local authority had asked several times for better security for such transports. 
 
 The Libyan government has been struggling since the 2011 ouster of Muammar Gaddafi to assert control of a country brimming with armed militias, gangs and radical Islamists. 
 
 The OPEC country's oil exports fell to less than 10 percent of capacity on Monday after protesters shut down ports and oilfields in the west. Similar strikes over pay or political demands have already paralyzed most of the eastern oil ports. 
 
 (Reporting by Ghaith Shennib and Ulf Laessing; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
– Ten gunmen stole $54 million from a bank van as it entered the city of Sirte in Libya after departing the airport, the BBC reports. The cash had come from Libya's central bank in Tripoli. The van had a single security vehicle as protection, and guards "were unable to resist the 10 attackers," LANA state news said. Local officials had sought better security for the money, a Sirte council member tells Reuters. The money included $42 million in Libyan dinars, along with $12 million worth of euros and US dollars, Al Jazeera reports, based on state news. "The robbing is a catastrophe not just for Sirte but the whole of Libya," the council member says. Police are pursuing the gunmen after their vehicles were identified, AFP reports per LANA. Crime has been rampant in the country since the end of Moammar Gadhafi's reign; July saw two bank heists in Sirte totaling $400,000, an official tells AFP.