SANAA, Oct. 18 -- Medical teams assessed whether 159 men were fit for road travel before the Houthi authorities released them on Saturday, in an operation the Red Cross says it supported. Which forces the men belonged to and where they were captured, the Houthi side did not say, and the Red Cross says it played no part in choosing them.

The Houthis described the men as fighters who "voluntarily surrendered without fighting" during recent combat, Xinhua reported. Abdul Qader al-Murtada, head of the group's prisoner affairs committee, announced the release at a press conference in Sanaa and said it fell under a general amnesty that Mahdi al-Mashat, head of the Houthi Supreme Political Council, issued on Sept. 10.

The International Committ...