Houthi rebels have controlled large stretches of Yemen since previous year, and in March they forced Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a Sunni Muslim, into exile in Saudi Arabia.
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Hadi, a former army general and vice president, assumed office in 2012 under a transition plan brokered by Gulf states after the Arab Spring protests ended three decades in power for his predecessor Ali Abdullah Saleh.
But they have lost territory in the south since late July, when the coalition began deploying ground troops.
The men were released at the airport in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, on Sunday but not without complications.
The sky over a Sanaa neighbourhood is illuminated by anti-aircraft fire as the Saudi-led coalition intensified airstrikes on Houthi positions in the capital of Yemen yesterday.
Last week, Yemeni Prime Minster Khaled Bahah and several Cabinet members from the internationally recognized government arrived in Aden and announced they were restarting government operations in the country.
This has been a recurring problem with attempts to start peace talks, as the Saudis have maintained that any talks be conditional on the Houthis first disarming and surrendering the entire country to their side.
The Houthis, however, still control much of north and central Yemen.
The coalition’s troop buildup in Marib reportedly accelerated after a Houthi missile strike in the province this month killed 60 soldiers from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain. The United Nations aid chief has called the scale of human suffering “almost incomprehensible”.
The number of casualties is expected to rise because some victims are still buried under rubble, they said.
Washington has provided intelligence and logistical support for the Saudi-led campaign, while calling for a political solution to the conflict.
Al-Qaida said in June that its leader in Yemen, Nasir al-Wuhayshi, had been killed by a USA drone.
On Monday the jihadists angered Mukalla residents by razing tombs in an old cemetery.
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Al-Qaida and its jihadist rival, the Islamic State group, regard the reverence of tombs as tantamount to idolatry.
