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Suspected killed four civilians and eight fighters from a southern separatist militia in a dawn attack on Thursday, launching grenades and firing machine guns on a southern checkpoint, an official said.

The suspected jihadists opened fire in the before escaping, the official told AFP, asking not to be named.

"It was gunmen, believed to be from Al-Qaeda, who launched the attack with machine guns and RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades), killing eight soldiers and four civilians," the official said.

The checkpoint in the coastal district of Ahwar was manned by members of the , a powerful southern Yemen separatist force.

The militia is dominated by the Southern Transitional Council (STC), which last year which is fighting against the in the country's north.

Security Belt forces have played a decisive role in the fight against Al-Qaeda and Islamic State group forces, forcing them to retreat from towns into rural areas.

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An STC official and medic in Abyan confirmed the death toll, but Al-Qaeda has not yet issued any statements on the attack.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) was born in 2009 between the network's offshoots in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, as they faced the onslaught of US and regional military campaigns.

It then took advantage of the war that erupted in Yemen in 2014 between the government and the Houthi rebels, bolstering its presence in the south of the country, and launching attacks against both sides.

The United States, which considers AQAP the terror group's most dangerous branch, has carried out a campaign of drone strikes in Yemen for the past two decades.

AQAP fighters are estimated to number in the low thousands, according to 2019 US estimates.

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