An organisation that monitors flight risks warned on Sunday (Jun 22) that US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites could heighten the threat to American operators in the region, as airlines continued to avoid large parts of the Middle East due to ongoing missile exchanges.

But following a barrage of early morning Iranian missiles, Israel has reopened its airspace for six hours on Sunday to bring back those stranded abroad since the conflict with Iran began on Jun 13.

Safe Airspace, a membership-based website run by OPSGROUP, said the US attacks on Iran may increase risks to US operators in the region.

“While there have been no specific threats made against civil aviation, Iran has previously warned it would retaliate by attacking US military interests in the Middle East – either directly or via proxies such as Hezbollah,” Safe Airspace said.

Meanwhile, flight tracking website FlightRadar24, said airlines maintained flight diversions around the region.

“Following US attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities, commercial traffic in the region is operating as it has since new airspace restrictions were put into place last week,” FlightRadar24 said on social media platform X.

Its website showed airlines were not flying in the airspace over Iran, Iraq, Syria and Israel. They have chosen other routings, such as north via the Caspian Sea or south via Egypt and Saudi Arabia, even if these result in higher fuel and crew costs and longer flight times.

Missile and drone barrages in an expanding number of conflict zones globally represent a high risk to airline traffic.

Since Israel launched strikes on Iran on Jun 13, carriers have suspended flights to destinations in the affected countries, though there have been some evacuation flights from neighbouring nations and some bringing stranded Israelis home.

In the days before the US strikes, American Airlines suspended flights to Qatar and United Airlines did the same with flights to Dubai.

Safe Airspace said it was possible airspace risks could now extend to countries including Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. “We continue to advise a high degree of caution at this time,” it said.

SIA FLIGHTS CANCELLED

Singapore Airlines (SIA) cancelled two flights between Singapore and Dubai on Sunday – SQ494 and SQ495 – following a “security assessment” of the situation in the Middle East.

It said it would be contacting all affected customers, with those impacted to be put on alternative flights or given the option to seek a full refund of the unused portion of their ticket.

Other SIA flights between Singapore and Dubai may also be affected as the situation remains fluid, the airline said.

All SIA and Scoot flights have stopped flying over Iranian airspace and have used alternative flight paths since Aug 2, 2024, the SIA group said last week.

“The SIA Group regularly reviews and determines the flight paths taken by our aircraft based on multiple factors.”

“These include weather conditions, safety and security considerations, advisories from international and regional bodies, insights from independent external security consultants, and regulatory restrictions.”

It added that it will continue to monitor the situation in the Middle East and will adjust flight paths as needed.

By Francois Murphy and John Irish

VIENNA/PARIS (Reuters) -U.S. military strikes overnight in which President Donald Trump said Iran’s main nuclear sites were “obliterated” will put to the test the widely held view that such attacks can delay a nuclear programme but not kill a determined push for atom bombs.

As Iran’s nuclear programme has expanded and become more sophisticated over the past two decades, many officials and nuclear experts have warned: You can destroy or disable a nuclear programme’s physical infrastructure but it is very hard or impossible to eliminate the knowledge a country has acquired.

Western powers including the United States have publicly suggested as much, complaining of the “irreversible knowledge gain” Iran has made by carrying out activities they object to.

“Military strikes alone cannot destroy Iran’s extensive nuclear knowledge,” the Washington-based Arms Control Association said in a statement after the U.S. strikes with massive bunker-busting bombs on sites including Iran’s two main underground enrichment plants at Natanz and Fordow.

“The strikes will set Iran’s programme back, but at the cost of strengthening Tehran’s resolve to reconstitute its sensitive nuclear activities, possibly prompting it to consider withdrawing from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and possibly proceeding to weaponisation.”

Israel has also said it has killed Iranian nuclear scientists but, while little is known about the personnel side of Iran’s nuclear programme, officials have said they are sceptical about that having a serious impact on Iran’s nuclear knowledge, even if it might slow progress in the near term.

The West says there is no civilian justification for Iran’s enrichment of uranium to near weapons-grade fissile purity. Iran says its nuclear objectives are solely peaceful and it has the right to enrich as much as it wants.

Iran’s nuclear programme has made rapid advances since Trump pulled the United States out of a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers that placed strict limits on its atomic activities in exchange for sanctions relief.

After the U.S. withdrawal in 2018 and the re-imposition of U.S. sanctions, Iran pushed past and then far beyond the limits imposed by the deal on items like the purity to which it can enrich uranium and how much it can stockpile.

URANIUM STOCK

At least until Israel’s first strikes against its enrichment installations on June 13, Iran was refining uranium to up to 60% purity, a short step from the roughly 90% that is bomb-grade, and far higher than the 3.67% cap imposed by the 2015 deal, which Iran respected until the year after Trump pulled out.

The last report on May 31 by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog that inspects Iran’s nuclear facilities, showed Iran had enough uranium enriched to up to 60%, if enriched further, for nine nuclear weapons, according to an IAEA yardstick. It has more at lower levels like 20% and 5%.

The exact impact of Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and materials has yet to be determined. In addition to the enrichment sites, the U.S. struck Isfahan, where officials have said much of Iran’s most highly enriched uranium stock was stored underground.

One important open question is how much highly enriched uranium Iran still has and whether it is all accounted for.

A senior Iranian source told Reuters on Sunday most of the highly enriched uranium at Fordow, the site producing the bulk of Iran’s uranium refined to up to 60%, had been moved to an undisclosed location before the U.S. attack there.

Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi told state TV last weekend Iran would take measures to protect nuclear materials and equipment that would not be reported to the IAEA, and it would no longer cooperate with the IAEA as before.

NORTH KOREA LOOMS LARGE

The IAEA has not been able to carry out inspections in Iran since the first Israeli strikes nine days ago, but has said it is in contact with the Iranian authorities.

What Iran will do next in terms of its nuclear programme is also unclear. Its threat to pull out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty hints at a race for nuclear weapons, but Iran has maintained it has no intention of doing so.

The only other country to announce its withdrawal from the NPT is North Korea in 2003. It expelled IAEA inspectors and went on to test nuclear weapons.

“Our biggest concern is that we end up with a North Korea scenario whereby these strikes convince the Iranians that the only way to save the regime is to go for the bomb. Nobody is bombing North Korea now, are they?” a European official said.

Even if inspections continue, because of Trump’s withdrawal in 2018 Iran had already scrapped extra IAEA oversight provided for by the 2015 deal. That means the agency no longer knows how many centrifuges Iran has at undeclared locations.

The IAEA says that while it cannot guarantee Iran’s aims are entirely peaceful, it also has no credible indication of a coordinated nuclear weapons programme.

The Israeli and now U.S. strikes have already raised fears among diplomats and other officials, however, that Iran will use those centrifuges to set up a secret enrichment site, since one could be built inside a relatively small and inconspicuous building like a warehouse.

“It is quite possible that there are enrichment sites that we don’t know about. Iran is a big country,” a Western official said, while adding that Iran could also choose to bide its time.

“In two years, if Iran were to start from scratch, they would only need a few months to reconstitute a new programme and to get back to where they were yesterday.”

(Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi; writing by Francois Murphy; editing by Mark Heinrich)

OSLO (Reuters) -Maersk vessels continue to sail through the Strait of Hormuz but the company was ready to re-evaluate this based on available information, the group said in a statement on Sunday, following U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities overnight.

“We will continuously monitor the security risk to our specific vessels in the region and are ready to take operational actions as needed,” the Danish container shipping company said.

(Reporting by Terje SolsvikEditing by Bernadette Baum)

Pope Leo XIV leads the Angelus prayer from his window at the Vatican, June 22, 2025. REUTERS/ Remo Casilli

VATICAN CITY — Pope Leo XIV on Sunday said the international community must strive to avoid war that risks opening an “irreparable abyss,” and that diplomacy should take the place of conflict.

US forces struck Iran’s three main nuclear sites overnight, joining an Israeli assault in a major new escalation of conflict in the Middle East as Tehran vowed to defend itself.

“Every member of the international community has a moral responsibility: to stop the tragedy of war before it becomes an irreparable abyss,” Pope Leo said during his weekly prayer with pilgrims.

“No armed victory can compensate for the pain of mothers, the fear of children, the stolen future. Let diplomacy silence the weapons, let nations chart their future with peace efforts, not with violence and bloody conflicts,” he added.

“In this dramatic scenario, which includes Israel and Palestine, the daily suffering of the population, especially in Gaza and other territories, risks being forgotten, where the need for adequate humanitarian support is becoming increasingly urgent,” Pope Leo said. — Reuters

By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. military’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites were not a preamble to plans for regime change, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Sunday, adding that private messages had been sent to Tehran encouraging them to negotiate.

Still, Hegseth warned Iran against following through with past threats of retaliation against the United States, and said U.S. forces were postured to defend themselves, and take action if needed.

“This mission was not and has not been about regime change,” Hegseth told a reporters at the Pentagon. “The president authorized a precision operation to neutralize the threats to our national interests posed by the Iranian nuclear program.”

The U.S. strikes included 14 bunker-buster bombs, more than two dozen Tomahawk missiles and over 125 military aircraft, in an operation the top U.S. general, General Dan Caine, said was named “Operation Midnight.”

Caine said initial battle damage assessments indicated that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction, but he declined to speculate whether any Iranian nuclear capabilities might still be intact.

The operation pushes the Middle East to the brink of a major new conflagration in a region already aflame for more than 20 months with wars in Gaza and Lebanon and a toppled dictator in Syria.

Tehran has vowed to defend itself, and responded with a volley of missiles at Israel that wounded scores of people and destroyed buildings in its commercial hub Tel Aviv.

But, perhaps in an effort to avert all-out war with the superpower, it had yet to carry out its main threats of retaliation – to target U.S. bases or choke off the quarter of the world’s oil shipments that pass through its waters.

The Iranian parliament approved closing the Hormuz strait, a potential choke point for oil shipments, but the country’s top security body is required to make a final decision, Iran’s press TV reported.

Caine said the U.S. military had increased protection of troops in the region, including in Iraq and Syria.

“Our forces remain on high alert and are fully postured to respond to any Iranian retaliation or proxy attacks, which would be an incredibly poor choice,” Caine said.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; Editing by Jasper Ward, Hugh Lawson and Giles Elgood)