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Israel's strikes on 30 Iranian fuel depots Saturday went far beyond what the U.S. expected when Israel notified it in advance, sparking the first significant disagreement between the allies since the war began eight days ago, according to a U.S. official, Israeli official and a source with knowledge.

Why it matters: The U.S. is concerned Israeli strikes on infrastructure that serves ordinary Iranians could backfire strategically, rallying Iranian society to support the regime and driving up oil prices.

Driving the news: The Israeli air force's Saturday strikes created large fires in Tehran, igniting flames visible for miles and blanketing the capital in heavy smoke.

Behind the scenes: Israeli and U.S. officials said the IDF notified the U.S. military ahead of the strikes.

The big picture: While the facilities that were struck are not oil production facilities, U.S. officials are concerned the footage of burning depots could spook oil markets and push energy prices even higher.

The other side: The spokesman for Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya headquarters, which oversees the military operations, warned Saturday that if attacks on Iran's oil infrastructure continue, Tehran may respond with similar strikes across the region.

What's next: A U.S. official says the disagreement and what the U.S. expects in the war is expected to be addressed at senior political levels between the two allies.

UAE and Saudi Arabia have been big investors in AI and major destinations for data centers.

The war in Iran is complicating plans by Gulf nations to spend more than $300 billion on data centers, chips and other AI investments, crimping a potential source of funding for power-hungry tech companies.

Countries such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia have become big destinations for data centers. Local firms are developing the projects, along with U.S. companies such as xAI, OpenAI, Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle and Google, which are drawn to the region for its cheap energy.

The Takeaway

Iran war threatens over $300 billion in Gulf AI investments.

Gulf nations’ massive AI data center plans face disruption.

Drone strikes on Amazon data centers highlight regional risks.

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Drone strikes on three Amazon data centers in the region suddenly made those projects appear riskier. A prolonged war could also reduce overseas investment into the region from firms such as Brookfield, which is working with multiple Gulf nations on their AI investments.

OpenAI and xAI have raised money from Gulf nations and made plans to build data centers in the region, leaving them more exposed to the risks of the conflict than rival Anthropic, which has raised money in the Gulf but has been reluctant to build large-scale computing facilities there.

Gulf nations will be won’t rush to divert resources away from AI investments because of their economic and strategic importance, said analysts who cover the region. But they might have little choice if the conflict stretches on for a long time.

“If that turns into months, or even longer, there could certainly be a disruptive pause to some of that investment,” said Stephen Minton, an analyst at technology research firm IDC. Minton said he expects the Gulf’s spending to continue in the near term.

After the tech giants themselves, Gulf countries have been among the biggest funders of AI. Spending plans by Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates cover everything from land and power for data centers to efforts to build powerful AI models in local dialects. The priciest items are Nvidia GPUs, which the countries have fought hard to import due to national security concerns on the part of the U.S. government.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman recently said the country planned to spend $50 billion on semiconductors in the short term, and the UAE could spend upward of $30 billion purchasing its allotment of Nvidia chips through next year, according to current market prices. Those chips won’t be usable if regional leaders can’t find a way to continue funding and protecting their data centers.

Hits on the three Amazon data centers in the Gulf disrupted several Amazon Web Services offerings in the region, according to the company’s most recent service update Tuesday.

The UAE, where two of the facilities were hit, is aiming to build the biggest project in the region: a data center campus spanning 10 square miles and consuming as much as 5 gigawatts of energy. OpenAI and Oracle will operate 1 GW of chip capacity at the site as part of the Stargate project.

Saudi Arabian officials have said they plan to build data centers consuming 6.6 GW of energy by 2034. Elon Musk’s xAI is working with Humain, the company overseeing the plans, to develop a data center in the country that could consume 500 megawatts of energy. (Before the AI boom, data centers used to be between 10 and 50 MW. A 1GW data center costs between $50 billion and $60 billion to build.)

Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Oracle have also either begun building data centers or announced plans to do so in Saudi Arabia. Iran has fired missiles at Saudi Arabia, including at the U.S. Embassy there.

Humain CEO Tareq Amin said in a statement Thursday that the company had secured 211 plots of land across Saudi Arabia for its data center plans. He emphasized its efforts to avoid service outages. “Our strategy is built on geographic diversity and multiple fiber-optic routes, which is possible because of the Kingdom’s vast land mass,” he said.

Kuwait and Qatar haven’t outlined nearly the level of spending commitments of their Gulf neighbors, but they’re investing alongside asset managers BlackRock and Brookfield in their pushes to build AI data centers. Brookfield and Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund said in December they planned to invest $20 billion together in AI projects both domestically and abroad.

The war could cause countries to rethink where they build data centers, said Jesse Marks, CEO of Rihla Research and Advisory, a geopolitical consulting firm. “The Gulf will reach a moment where they have to reassess how they build core infrastructure, even down to the geographic location,” he said.

Brookfield Asset Management CEO Connor Teskey said last week the war hadn’t affected the firm’s investment plans in Qatar. “We’re very long-term investors,” Teskey said during a Bloomberg TV appearance.

Even if Gulf nations continue to spend on domestic AI projects, they could pull back from their pledges to spend trillions of dollars in the U.S. on manufacturing facilities and other large investments. Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is funding most of the $55 billion buyout of Electronic Arts, which it’s trying to finalize in the next few months.

The macro impact of the war could also have broader effects on AI financing. A prolonged conflict could hit travel, trade and investment, slowing the global economy. Higher energy prices—oil is up by almost a third—could spur inflation and push up interest rates, driving up the cost of the data center buildout. U.S. interest rates last week rose the most they have since President Donald Trump imposed his “liberation day” tariffs in April.

By taking the top two spots on the podium on Sunday, the German team made it clear that it had already mastered the sport’s sweeping new regulations

Every few years, Formula One does something that no other sport would ever dream of. Simply for the sake of mixing up the challenge and shuffling the pack, F1 rewrites its entire rulebook.

The technical regulations that govern car design in one era are tossed out and replaced by a fresh set of regulations—and a brand new engineering challenge. But after a single race under the 2026 rules, it’s clear that one team has already cracked them.

On Sunday in Melbourne, Australia, Mercedes took the top two spots on the podium, as Great Britain’s George Russell claimed the first Grand Prix of the season and laid down a marker to the rest of the sport. His teammate Kimi Antonelli was second, ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. Now, barely one weekend into the 24-race calendar, F1 has an early sense of how this season might go. There is Mercedes, and then there is the rest.

“It’s a perfect way to start the season,” Russell said. “But it is still very early days in the championship, and we know our rivals will be trying to close the gap quickly.”

Mercedes had already conquered what came to be known as F1’s “hybrid era,” which saw it win eight consecutive constructors’ world championships from 2014 to 2021. That gave way to shorter spells of dominance for Red Bull and McLaren. But there is no question now, after the most sweeping rule changes in the sport’s history, that Mercedes is back.

Whispers had circulated for a year in F1 circles that the team had stolen a march on the rest of the field. Even while McLaren ran riot through 2025 by taking 14 of the 24 Grands Prix, Mercedes had punted on the season to refine a 2026 car that would blow its rivals away. In a sport defined by which designers adopt the most aggressive and creative approach to the rules, it seemed that the engineers behind the Silver Arrows had unearthed all the right loopholes.

One theory on the F1 paddock was that Mercedes had discovered a hack with regard to engine compression ratios, a technical spec that ultimately affects engine horsepower. Rival teams believed that Mercedes had worked out a way to comply with the regulations when the engine was inspected cold, but exceeded them in race conditions, once the engine was hot.

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff had said that the controversy “looks like a storm in a teacup.” Still, it grew loud enough for officials to announce last month that they would begin taking measurements when the engine was hot beginning June 1.

Until then, however, chances are that Mercedes will keep padding its cushion atop the standings. This is often the way when one team solves the new regulations before the rest. The classic example remains the 2009 season, when Brawn GP exploited an aerodynamic loophole with an innovation known as a “double diffuser.” The impact was so dramatic that Brawn driver Jenson Button won six of the first seven races as the rest of the sport scrambled to catch up. Only by then, it was too late. Button won the drivers’ title—and the Brawn team eventually morphed into modern Mercedes.

So this time around, the rest of F1 knows enough to be worried.

“If they have a few months of that, then the season’s done,” said Lewis Hamilton, who finished fourth on Sunday. “I mean, not done … but seven races, a few months, you lose a lot of points when you are a second behind.”

Not every outfit this season has developed such a clear idea. Aston Martin is still at square one, despite making Adrian Newey, the most successful designer in F1 history, one of the highest paid people in the sport. After the drivers experienced such severe vibration in the car that they worried about nerve damage in their hands, neither was able to complete the full race distance on Sunday. Lance Stroll finished 43 of the 58 laps and his teammate, Fernando Alonso, managed just 21.

“We used the race as a learning session,” Stroll said. “There’s still quite a bit missing in terms of performance and reliability.”

But as far the world championship is concerned, it may already be too late for any team to make enough progress to trouble Mercedes.

“We feel a lot of contentment coming away from Melbourne today,” Wolff said. “It is great to see Mercedes back at the front of the field.”

De Facto Wartime Leader Steers Iran’s Defiant Response to U.S.

Iranian security chief Ali Larijani says Trump will ‘pay the price’ but has also shown appetite for diplomacy

Speaking on state television late Saturday in a room plunged in near-total darkness, Ali Larijani, Iran’s top national-security official, vowed to hold President Trump responsible for killing Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Trump must “pay the price” for the U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran, he said, calling the U.S. president “very backward.”

Trump brushed off the defiant tone. “I have no idea what he’s talking about, who he is. I couldn’t care less,” the president told CBS News.

Who he is is arguably the most important person in Iran right now.

A senior official once known for engaging the West before remaking himself as a regime hard-liner, Larijani has emerged as the central figure in Iran’s aggressive military response to U.S.-Israeli airstrikes, say Iranian, Arab and European officials.

He is leading the retaliatory strikes that are pounding targets in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere across the Persian Gulf. He is also in charge of ensuring that a new round of protests don’t break out at home, after he led the bloody crackdown on protesters in January that left thousands of Iranians dead.

Iran is close to naming a new supreme leader to replace Khamenei, who was killed in airstrikes Feb. 28. A top contender is Khamenei’s own son, Mojtaba Khamenei.

For now, though, it is Larijani, who is the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, who is driving the country’s aggressive policies, say the Iranian, Arab and European officials. He has gained the upper hand over Iran’s president and other top leaders, they say.

He is also expected to continue in his role coordinating the day-to-day war effort and to maintain a high level of influence on military matters even after a new supreme leader is appointed, they said.

With Iran’s system focusing on war and domestic security, Larijani “is now Iran’s most powerful person,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior director at the Iran program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

By contrast, Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, who is the most senior member of the current civilian caretaker government, has had little to say on military affairs and has largely been sidelined, diplomats say.

On Saturday, Pezeshkian tried to ease tensions with Arab countries, apologizing and vowing to stop Iranian attacks that have targeted hotels, oil facilities and other civilian infrastructure across the Persian Gulf. But Larijani and top military commanders have contradicted him and continued launching strikes.

“Countries in the region must either prevent the United States from using their territory against Iran themselves, or we will do it,” Larijani said Saturday.

Despite his bravado, diplomats who are familiar with the 67-year-old say they believe that Larijani, who has ties with the U.S. through a daughter who lived and worked there, has a background that suggests he could at least be someone other countries can negotiate with once the current wave of U.S. and Israeli-led airstrikes ebbs.

Larijani played a central role in the killings of antiregime demonstrators in January, according to the U.S. government, which sanctioned him that month for his role. But he also served as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator attempting to resolve the country’s nuclear dispute with the West between 2005 to 2007, and at one point in his career was temporarily sidelined by Iranian leaders because of links to reformers.

Diplomats describe him as a pragmatist who has survived in a career spanning four decades by combining brutality with an openness to dialogue, in contrast with other hard-liners who simply refuse to engage with Western leaders.

“He is very adaptable. He goes with the flow,” said an Arab mediator with Iran. “He supported the nuclear talks. He is now managing a very strong retaliation. But if the price is right, he may go back to the table.”

Just after the initial U.S. and Israeli airstrikes began roughly a week ago, Larijani tentatively raised the possibility of resuming nuclear talks with Washington through Oman, say Arab and U.S. officials, but the push didn’t go anywhere as both sides focused on military actions.

Outwardly, Larijani continues to say Iran isn’t ready to negotiate. After vowing to smash the U.S. and Israel “with a force that they have never experienced before” in a post on X last Sunday, he doubled down on Tuesday, warning that he “will make the enemies sorry for their miscalculation,” in a post on X.

Jack Straw, a former British foreign secretary who met Larijani on the sidelines of a United Nations meeting in 2005, described Larijani as a more sophisticated figure than his boss at the time, former hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. While Ahmadinejad was dressed in “vintage, early 1980s” clothes, Larijani came from “the opposite end of the sartorial spectrum: suave, wearing a carefully pressed Ralph Lauren polo shirt,” Straw wrote in his memoir.

A Polish diplomat who spoke to Larijani in 2006 likewise described him “as more sophisticated than his colleagues” and said the Iranian denied that his country wanted nuclear weapons, according to a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable. At a separate meeting in 2008, Larijani told Egypt he was flexible to cooperate on regional security but insisted Iran be able to continue “dominating” in Iraq and Lebanon, according to another leaked cable.

Born in Najaf, Iraq, in 1958 to a leading Iranian clerical family, Larijani moved to Iran as a child and went on to earn a philosophy doctorate. After a brief stint as a commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, now Iran’s strongest political and economic force, he rose through a series of jobs before embarking on a first stint as the country’s national-security chief.

In that role, between 2005 and 2007, he demonstrated a willingness to compromise during nuclear talks with European nations, Western officials have previously said. Iran eventually reached a nuclear deal with the U.S. and other powers, but the U.S. pulled out in Trump’s first term.

Larijani was later accused of taking sides with reformists during a contested election in 2009. He was sidelined by hard-liners and banned from contesting in presidential polls in 2021 and 2024.

Last year, Larijani made a comeback. He was named to once again take over the national-security council after his predecessor, Ali Shamkhani, was accused by paramilitary forces of being too lenient with protests that erupted in 2022.

Larijani solidified his standing among senior leaders last June, when he managed to keep the country’s security apparatus running as Israel and then the U.S. struck Iran’s nuclear and missile facilities. He oversaw the country’s response, which included hundreds of missiles launched at Israel, while communicating with Khamenei, who was holed up in a bunker, according to Iranian officials. Many of the projectiles made it through Israeli defenses, causing significant damage.

Last month, Larijani traveled to Oman to prepare for indirect nuclear talks with the U.S., as Washington amassed an armada of warships and a fleet of aircraft in the region. While offering diplomacy, he also warned that even a limited U.S. strike would be met with a full-fledged war, said Iranian and Arab officials.

In January, he also traveled to Saudi Arabia and Qatar, threatening those countries with attacks if they didn’t stop the U.S. from striking.

Larijani has seen his role expand significantly since Khamenei’s death. He is helping lead the attacks of drones and missiles across the Persian Gulf. U.S. officials say Larijani has also been coordinating efforts to ensure that dissent doesn’t break out again at home, tightening controls on public behavior after leading the crackdown on protesters in January.

He has maintained some connections to the U.S. Until January, Larijani’s daughter, Fatemeh Ardeshir Larijani, was an assistant professor at Emory University medical school in Atlanta, according to its website. She was dismissed after a petition launched by antiregime opponents.

Switzerland votes to end ‘marriage penalty’ in historic tax referendum

Narrow victory paves way for scrapping rules that some say unfairly penalised married couples

Switzerland has voted to introduce individual taxation, backing one of the biggest changes to the country’s tax system in decades and scrapping rules that critics say penalise married couples where both partners work.

The reform will replace Switzerland’s longstanding system of joint taxation, under which spouses must combine their income and file a single return. In a progressive tax system, that structure often pushed married couples into higher tax brackets than unmarried partners with similar earnings — a distortion widely known as the wedding or “marriage penalty”.

Nearly 54 per cent of voters were in favour of the change, according to preliminary official estimates on Sunday.

The reform is expected to come into force gradually, with the new system due to be implemented by 2032 at the latest, giving the federal government and Switzerland’s 26 cantons time to adapt their tax systems.

Government estimates suggest the reform could add 60,000 people to the workforce and lift GDP by about 1 per cent, even though the change would reduce tax revenue.

Supporters have long argued the existing framework discouraged labour participation by second earners — typically women — because additional income was taxed at a higher marginal rate once combined with a spouse’s salary.

The referendum reflects Switzerland’s traditionally conservative family model, particularly outside cities such as Zurich and Geneva.

Women only gained the federal vote in 1971 and many still work part-time despite high overall employment. Just 60 per cent of Swiss women work full-time, compared with 78 per cent in the OECD, according to PwC data from last year.

The issue has also produced unusual workarounds. Many couples have held wedding ceremonies without legally registering their marriage, while others have even considered divorcing during retirement for tax reasons, according to advisers and tax specialists.

The issue has been debated in Switzerland for decades, with conservative parties, family groups and some cantonal governments pushing back against changes they argued could penalise single-income households and weaken the traditional family model.

Opponents have also warned the change would add bureaucracy by forcing married couples to file separate returns and could burden tax authorities with additional filings.

Government estimates indicate that roughly half of taxpayers would benefit from the reforms, while about a third would see little difference and a minority would pay more.

Sunday’s vote was one of four national issues put to Swiss voters under the country’s system of direct democracy. Another closely watched proposal sought to enshrine the availability of physical cash in the constitution.

The vote comes amid growing global debate about the future of physical money, with Switzerland maintaining its attachment to banknotes even as digital payments rise.

Estimates on Sunday indicated strong support for a government plan to write a guarantee into Switzerland’s federal constitution that physical cash must continue to be available, with more than 70 per cent voting in favour of safeguarding access to banknotes.

Trump raises the stakes in Iran by weighing deployment of US ground forces

Democrats and some Republicans fear a deepening involvement in the war with no clear exit strategy

Donald Trump’s openness to deploying troops inside Iran, including special forces to seize Tehran’s enriched uranium, has raised new concerns in Washington about deeper US involvement in the war.

The US president has never ruled out the possibility that he might have to deploy some ground forces to Iran in addition to targeting the Islamic republic with a barrage of air strikes since the conflict began on February 28.

But, at the weekend, Trump signalled that dispatching American forces into Iran under certain circumstances was actively under consideration.

On Saturday, Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he would send troops only for a “very good reason” and if Iran’s military were “so decimated that they wouldn’t be able to fight at the ground level”.

He added that sending in troops to secure enriched uranium stockpiles in Iran was something that could be done “later on”, though the US would not do it “now”.

Trump administration officials insist that Trump would never take any options off the table and that the Iran war plan does not at the moment involve the deployment of ground troops.

But the president’s openness to the potential use of ground forces has stoked worries in Washington among both Democrats and some Republicans that Trump is planning to expand America’s involvement at a time of rising concern over high oil prices and confusion over the war’s aims.

“When you start putting boots on the ground, and those boots on the ground may need reinforcement, that starts looking like a longer-term conflict,” Thom Tillis, the Republican senator from North Carolina, said on CNN on Sunday, urging Trump to seek congressional authorisation for the war.

“Let’s just be straight up with the American people . . . I believe that some of the reasons why you may see some hesitancy among voters right now is they’re just not clear what we’re doing and how long we’re going to be doing it,” he added.

An NBC poll released on Sunday found that 54 per cent of registered voters disapproved of Trump’s handling of Iran, compared with 41 per cent who approved. 52 per cent said the US should not have launched the war, while 41 per cent said it should have.

Democrats have criticised the White House for failing to abide by its campaign pledge not to launch new conflicts around the world.

So far, six US soldiers have been killed during the war against Iran. Their remains were brought back to the US on Saturday during a “dignified transfer” at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware attended by Trump.

“We are deeply saddened right now by the loss of six brave and heroic servicemen and women who have already lost their lives,” Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, told NBC on Sunday.

“The American people deserve answers from the administration as to how we are going to actually move forward in a way that makes America safer, not more vulnerable.”

Axios reported over the weekend that US and Israeli officials had been discussing special forces operations in Iran to secure uranium stockpiles, but it was not clear if this would be a US, Israeli or joint operation. A US defence official said they “won’t speculate on hypothetical situations or future operations”.

When asked about the report on Sunday, Trump told ABC: “Everything is on the table. Everything.”

Meanwhile, Michael Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the US, said securing the enriched uranium was “an objective we have to accomplish”.

“The first thing we have to do is create a situation we’re going to be able to get to that enriched material and remove it, and that has to reach a point where there’s less kinetic activity on the ground. It’s obviously on our radar screen and we’re going to take care of it,” he told CBS.

Even a limited use of US ground troops in Iran would raise the stakes of the war for Trump from a domestic political perspective, as even some non-interventionist segments of the Republican Party have been balking at the war.

“The price of gas has gone up $0.47 and the price of diesel has gone up $0.83 in 10 days due to War with Iran. And waging war costs American taxpayers about $1 billion per day, which comes out to $10 per family per day, or $100 since the war began. This isn’t America First,” Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who has often sparred with Trump, wrote on X on Sunday.

John Kennedy, a Republican senator from Louisiana, told Fox on Sunday that he did not expect Trump to send ground troops.

“If he sends in troops, the thud you hear will be me faceplanting because I fainted,” Kennedy said.

“I think this will all take a matter of weeks. And after we are done, it’ll be up to the good people — and they are good people — of Iran to try to overthrow these knobheads who are in charge now”.

Oman base seeks to prioritise government and commercial relief services as attempts to reopen other centres falter

Muscat airport in Oman has told private jet operators to avoid using the site, giving priority to government and commercial flights as fresh airspace closures hit the region’s attempts to increase flights. 

The Oman base has emerged as the de facto departure point for many of the repatriation flights by European governments but has also been a thriving centre for charter and private planes used by wealthy residents trying to leave the Gulf. 

Chartered planes accounted for around a third of flights from the airport over the past week, according to data from Flightradar24. 

“Due to the current crisis management measures at Muscat International Airport, flight movements are restricted to approved seasonal scheduled services only,” the airport authorities told charter plane operators on Friday, according to an email seen by the FT. 

“This measure is necessary to manage congestion and ensure that airport capacity remains within acceptable limits.” 

It added: “All airlines and operators are requested to cancel any slots falling outside the approved seasonal schedule and to refrain from submitting non-approved flight requests until further notice.

“The only additional flights that may be considered during this period are embassy-sponsored repatriation flights, subject to prior approval through the applicable diplomatic channels and on the condition that no commercial sale of seats is undertaken in connection with such operations.”

Prices for seats on private flights out of Muscat had reached more than $20,000, as wealthy Dubai residents sought to leave the region. Some were using services to take their pets in an indication they were leaving the region for a longer period of time, according to two jet operators. 

Charter flight operators have also been using Riyadh and Dammam in Saudi Arabia.

While hundreds of flights have taken off from the region in the past week, tens of thousands of passengers remain stranded, while many more are still in Asia and unable to return to Europe. Some passengers have been choosing to return to Europe via America. 

Air India said on Sunday that it would run extra flights to New York, London, Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam, Zurich, Colombo and Malé starting on Tuesday.

Efforts to increase air travel from the region’s major airports have been mixed.

Dubai restarted flights last week and had resumed around a quarter of its services by Thursday but was forced to close briefly on Saturday. Planes taking off from Dubai follow a narrow air corridor south, which is patrolled by UAE military jets to ensure their safety: a set-up that is likely to create a bottleneck as flights increase. 

Qatar reopened its airspace over the weekend, only to close it again on Sunday. Qatar Airways ran services to cities including London and Paris on Saturday, the first from the airline’s Doha base in a week. 

Virgin Atlantic, which had restarted a daily service between London and Dubai this week, was forced to send a plane back to Heathrow after airspace was closed. On Sunday it cancelled the service until March 28. 

“Following airport and airspace closures in Dubai and Riyadh on Saturday March 7, we made the decision to cancel our London Heathrow, Dubai and Riyadh rotations,” Virgin Atlantic said.

“We have strict criteria that must be met for a flight to continue into a region, and our criteria for proceeding to Dubai and Riyadh were not met, resulting in the safe diversion of these flights.”

European carriers such as British Airways and Air France have been running flights out of Muscat, and say it is not yet safe enough to return to previous destinations such as Dubai or Abu Dhabi. 

Kuwait’s Jazeera Airways said it would temporarily move its operations to Qaisumah Airport in neighbouring Saudi Arabia, as Kuwaiti airspace remains closed due to missile and drone threats from Iran.