Al-Qaida militants attacked a police station and two military posts in the southeastern province of al-Bayda on Thursday, leaving about 12 soldiers killed, a government official told Xinhua.

"Two military posts and a police center were attacked by a group of al-Qaida gunmen who threw explosives into the sites manned by army soldiers and opened heavy gunfire. Fierce fighting was still ongoing," the local government official said on condition of anonymity.

The armed attack targeted two sites of the 139th Armored Brigade in the eastern outskirts of al-Bayda's provincial capital, " which bears the same name, about 270 km south of the Yemeni capital of Sanaa.

"Initial details show that there were heavy casualties. About 12 soldiers were killed and several others injured," the government source said.

A police officer told Xinhua that the al-Qaida insurgents invaded the 139th Armored Brigade and launched coordinated attacks on the army's artillery battalion in the city.

He said some high-ranking military personnel may have died in the attack.

"Our army troops supported by the Yemeni Air force are presently pursuing the terrorists in the region," an intelligence source told Xinhua, without providing further details.

Local residents told Xinhua on phone that the coordinated attacks were carried out around noon on Thursday by about 60 unknown gunmen.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack yet, but militants of the Yemen-based al-Qaida offshoot are usually behind such attacks and assassination attempts, mostly in the country's southern regions.

The al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which emerged in January 2009, is considered as the most strategic threat to Yemen and its neighbor oil-rich Saudi Arabia.