Felicia Udeji Reporting
Commercial flights began diverting their routes early Friday morning over western Iran without explanation as one semi-official news agency in the Islamic Republic claimed there had been “explosions” heard over the city of Isfahan.
The incident comes amid tensions in the wider Middle East after Iran’s unprecedented missile-and-drone attack on Israel.
Dubai-based carriers Emirates and FlyDubai began diverting around western Iran about 4.30am local time. They offered no explanation, though local warnings to aviators suggested the airspace may have been closed.
The first-ever direct Iranian attack on Israel has brought the conflict between the two countries ‘out of the shadows and into the light’.
“Israel’s attack against Iran’s consulate in Syria could have been a bid by Netanyahu to drag the US into a conflict with Tehran”, an analyst says
Six months of escalating shadow warfare between Israel and Iran, running parallel to the Gaza conflict, has torn up the rules of engagement that for years had prevented their enmity from triggering a catastrophic war across the Middle East.
Fear is now rife across the region that such a conflict could be inevitable even if Israel’s allies were able to dissuade it for now from carrying out a strong retaliation to Iran’s massive albeit well-advertised attack using hundreds of so-called suicide drones and ballistic missiles on April 12-13.