FOUR NEW YORK TIMES JOURNALISTS who had been missing in Libya for six days and were believed to have been detained by pro-Gaddai forces have been released.

Turkey’s Ambassador to the US Namik Tan tweeted today:

4 @nytimes journalists captured by forces loyal to Gadhafi are released this morning, after Turkey’s negoatiations with Libyan officials.

The New York Times says the four were held by forces loyal to Gaddafi and were handed over to Turkish diplomats who accompanied them out of Libya. One of those held, Stephen Farrell, was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2009, but was subsequently rescued by British forces.

The Libyan had said earlier that if Gaddafi’s forces were holding the journalists, they would be released unharmed.

Turkish diplomats were also involved in securing the release of an Iraqi journalist working for the Guardian who was detained by Libyan forces for a fortnight.

Editor-in-chief at the Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, said his journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad had been held in solitary confinement, but not harmed. A Brazilian journalist who was picked up and detained alongside Abdul-Ahad was freed earlier.

On Saturday, Libyan journalist Mohammed al-Nabbous who ran a webcast programme featuring the aftermath of government attacks was killed by a sniper during a government assault on Benghazi. Those attacks sparked the international coalition’s military action against Gaddafi’s forces.

- Includes reporting from the AP