DUBAI, United Arab Emirates—Three Americans held captive by Shiite rebels in Yemen’s capital have been freed, Oman’s state news agency and officials in Yemen said Thursday.
The short English-language statement on the Oman News Agency said only that the U.S. State Department had asked Oman to bring the Americans out of the country. It did not elaborate or provide information on the Americans’ identities.
However, independent security officials in Yemen and members of the Shiite rebels known as Houthis said the Americans had been detained for at least two months at a Houthi security building in the rebel-held capital of Sanaa.
The rebels and the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren’t authorized to brief journalists, did not say why the Americans were held. Two of them were working with the United Nations, the officials said, while offering no information about the third.
The Houthis previously said they had detained two Americans on suspicion of being spies, but it wasn’t immediately clear if those two were included in the release.
Some foreigners have been held in recent months by fighters involved in the country’s ongoing civil war, either as political hostages or for ransom.
U.S. officials could not be immediately reached for comment.
