Assailants Launch Two-Pronged Attack on Yemen Defense Ministry Khaled Abdullah/Reuters Smoke billowed from Yemen's Defense Ministry after an assailant drove a car packed with explosives into the complex on Thursday. SANA, Yemen - Assailants launched a two-pronged attack on Yemen's heavily guarded Defense Ministry in the center of the capital on Thursday, ramming a car packed with explosives into one part of the complex as attackers on foot opened fire with automatic rifles on another, witnesses said. The attack offered further testimony to Yemen's frail security midway through a bumpy political transition as the authorities struggle with militants, rebels and secessionists in the strategical nation bordering Saudi Arabia and Oman, both traditional allies of the West, at the tip of the Arabian Peninsula. In the initial confusion, news reports quoting Defense Ministry officials said 20 people had been killed, including both militants and Yemeni soldiers, and dozens wounded, but other accounts put the death toll higher. Several foreign medical workers were also reported to be among the dead after the attackers stormed into a hospital within the complex. State television broadcast an appeal for blood donors along with images of charred vehicles and body parts. Gunfire rang out after the car exploded, sending plumes of smoke into the air. The blast was heard across Sana, the capital of a troubled and impoverished country that is regularly convulsed by violence. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which some analysts said showed the hallmarks of Al Qaeda. The attack was apparently timed to coincide with the changing of the guard at the complex, when gates are opened to allow soldiers to enter and leave. Yemeni special forces in armored vehicles surrounded the building, fighting gun battles with about a dozen assailants. Yemen is known as the home of one of Al Qaeda's most organized and threatening affiliates, whose operatives are the targets of an American drone campaign to kill militants suspected of involvement in kidnapping for ransom and a string of deadly attacks on military targets. Yemeni officials say that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as the affiliate is called, has infiltrated the country's security services, and there were reports that the attackers on Thursday wore military uniforms. In September, at least 21 government soldiers were killed by militants suspected of belonging to Al Qaeda in attacks on two military targets in the south of Yemen. Al Qaeda is not the only source of unrest. The government is facing secessionists in the south and Shiite Muslim rebels in the north. Since the former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, was forced from office in 2011 by popular protests, the country has been run by an interim government supposed to prepare for elections next year. Nasser Arrabyee reported from Sana, Yemen, and Alan Cowell from London.