Three prison guards and 29 inmates have been killed in a high-security prison in Tajikistan after convicted ISIS militants started a riot.

The central Asian nation's Justice Ministry said on Monday that the riot broke out late on Sunday in the prison in the city of Vakhdat.

Militants armed themselves with knives and killed three guards and five fellow prisoners.

Three prison guards and 29 inmates have been killed in a high-security prison in the city of Vakhdat (pictured) in western Tajikistan

One of the instigators of the riot was Bekhruz Gulmurod, whose father Gulmurod Khalimov was a Tajik special forces colonel who defected to ISIS in 2015.

According to Tajikistan's Justice Ministry, Gulmurod has since been killed in Syria.

Security forces have killed 24 militants and restored order in the prison which has 1,500 inmates, the ministry added.

At one point ISIS controlled large swathes of land in Syria and Iraq but has now lost its strongholds.

The terror group claimed responsibility for another prison riot in the northern Tajik city of Khujand in November, when at least 25 inmates and two security officers died after an inmate attacked a guard and seized his assault rifle.

Islamic State released a video purportedly showing attackers pledging allegiance to the militant group before killing four Western tourists in Tajikistan in July 2018

The riot, believed to have been instigated by a member of ISIS, had followed a deadly attack by its followers on Western tourists last summer.

During the attack on July 29 2018, a vehicle ploughed into a group of foreign cyclists on a rural road about 60 miles south of Dushanbe.

Those inside then 'exited the car and stabbed the cyclists with knives,' the U.S. Embassy in Tajikistan said in a statement at the time.

Two Americans, a Swiss and Dutch citizen were killed.