Tehran
\nA wave of United States and Israeli strikes on Iran, and retaliation by Tehran, have triggered an outburst of regional violence, forcing much of the Middle East\u2019s airspace to shut down and reverberating across the globe.
\nAt least eight states declared their airspace closed as the conflict erupted Saturday, including Iran, Israel, Iraq, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. Syria also announced it had closed part of its airspace in the south along its border with Israel for 12 hours.
\nThe closures came after the US and Israel carried out attacks across Iran that US President Donald Trump pledged would raze Iran\u2019s missile industry and destroy its navy. Iran, which had been engaged in negotiations with the US over its nuclear programme right up until the attack, pledged a harsh response and soon began waging retaliatory strikes in Israel, as well as several Gulf Arab states that host US military assets, including Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE and Bahrain.
\n\u201cAll American and Israeli assets and interests in the Middle East have become a legitimate target,\u201d a senior Iranian official told Al Jazeera. \u201cThere are no red lines after this aggression, and everything is possible.\u201d
\nThe disruption caused global airlines to cancel or divert flights from destinations across the Middle East, which has become an important route for flights between Europe and Asia, as Russian and Ukrainian airspace is closed to most airlines due to the war there.
\nRussia\u2019s Ministry of Transport said Russian air carriers had suspended flights to Iran and \u2060Israel. Air India said it would temporarily avoid the Middle East altogether.
\nAmong other airlines announcing suspensions to destinations in the region were Lufthansa, Air France, Iberia, Wizz Air, Turkish Airlines, Qatar Airways, Virgin Atlantic, KLM, British Airways, Aegean Airlines, Indigo, Japan Airlines and Scandinavian Airlines.
\nAl Jazeera\u2019s Ali Hashem, reporting from Doha, said the joint US-Israeli attack on Iran and Iran\u2019s response, affecting numerous Gulf states, have created two \u201cparallel\u201d conflicts, further deepening instability.
\n\u201cThis could make the whole crisis very intertwined and very complicated in a way that this region has never witnessed,\u201d said Hashem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tehran A wave of United States and Israeli strikes on Iran, and retaliation by Tehran, have triggered an outburst of regional violence, forcing much of the Middle East\u2019s airspace to shut down and reverberating across the globe. At least eight states declared their airspace closed as the conflict erupted Saturday, including Iran, Israel, Iraq, Jordan, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534129,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-534110","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n