Muscat: Oman’s Foreign Affairs Ministry confirmed a plane carrying an Al Houthi delegation and six hostages arrived in Muscat on Sunday afternoon.
Three Americans, two Saudis and one Briton were captured six months ago by Al Houthi militants. Oman managed to secure their release through negotiations. The men will be handed over to their respective embassies.
Oman, the only Gulf Cooperation Council member not taking part in the coalition, has hosted talks between Al Houthis and a US delegation before a previous, failed round of UN-brokered negotiations took place in Geneva in June.
The identities of the hostages were not immediately known.
Officials from the Al Houthi media centre refused explain why they had detained the hostages. But at least one of them is a journalist, whom they said “entered the country illegally” and “worked without notifying the authorities.”
Meanwhile, Al Houthi spokesman Mohammad Abdul Salam held a press conference at the airport and refused to confirm the hostages’ release.
“If we were to release anyone, it would be in exchange for the release of Al Houthis,” he said, without specifying which authorities he was addressing.
The conflicting information could not immediately be reconciled.
Meanwhile in the western province of Ibb, the Saudi-led coalition’s airstrikes against an Al Houthi stronghold and prison facility killed 11 and wounded more than 50 militants, security officials and witnesses said.
Sunday’s air strikes hit a security directorate where the militants held more than 300 prisoners underground, said the officials, who remain neutral in the conflict that has splintered the country’s security forces.
-with inputs from AP