Airlines keep avoiding Middle East airspace after US attack on Iran
Russia says any use of tactical nuclear weapons by US in Iran would be catastrophic, TASS reports
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South China Morning Post
an hour ago
- South China Morning Post
As US enters Israel-Iran conflict, are China's Middle East interests at risk?
Direct military engagement by the US in the Israel-Iran conflict risks escalating regional tensions and threatens China's strategic economic foothold in the Middle East, according to analysts. Xu Weijun, an assistant research fellow at the Institute of Public Policy at South China University of Technology, said rising tensions in the Middle East would undermine China's investments in the region, with conflict threatening key projects and violence disrupting trade flows and oil imports. 'In terms of China's energy security and oil supply, the Strait of Hormuz is a vital shipping route for Chinese oil imports. Given Iran's geographic control over the strait, any intensification of regional conflict could threaten the stability of this critical passage, posing risks to China's oil import flows,' Xu said. US President Donald Trump on Saturday said a 'very successful attack' on three nuclear sites in Iran had been carried out. The attack has fuelled fears among different countries that tensions would further intensify in the region. Both the Houthi rebels in Yemen and Hamas – two groups supported by Iran – have condemned the US strikes, with the Houthis vowing to support Iran in its fight against 'the Zionist and American aggression'.
South China Morning Post
an hour ago
- South China Morning Post
Iran retaliating against US inevitable as window for diplomacy narrows: analysts
Iranian retaliation against the American air strikes ordered by President Donald Trump is inevitable, despite a diplomatic backchannel message from Washington to Tehran before the attack that it was intended as a one-off, according to analysts. The only uncertainty, Middle East experts say, is how the Islamic republic will balance its responses so as to preserve the regime and show its potency within the region – if only to buy enough time to clandestinely build nuclear warheads. 'Trump just guaranteed that Iran will be a nuclear weapons state in the next five to 10 years – particularly if the regime changes,' said Trita Parsi, executive vice-president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a Washington think tank. According to James Acton, co-director of the Carnegie Endowment's nuclear policy programme, 'retaliation – especially ballistic missile strikes against US regional assets – is highly likely'. But what comes next, including the US response, is unclear. 'That's why this may well not be 'one and done'', despite Trump's warning to Tehran not to retaliate, Acton said.
South China Morning Post
2 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Israel faces new reality after US strikes on Iran's nuclear sites
Israelis woke up to a new reality on Sunday after President Donald Trump confirmed that the US bombed Iran's three main nuclear sites , diminishing a threat they have considered existential for decades. The US attack was embraced across the Israeli political spectrum, lauded on hastily assembled TV panels as a historic symbol of unprecedented US-Israeli cooperation at a time when the mainly Jewish state has been shunned by others for its war in Gaza. But commentators and officials were quick to acknowledge that what comes next is far from clear, including Iran's potential responses. They expressed concern that Iran might attack US bases in the region or Israel's own nuclear research centre near the desert town of Dimona, or escalate its own nuclear programme. Iran's atomic energy agency described the US strikes as a 'savage assault' but pledged not to abandon its nuclear industry. The agency did not confirm whether the sites of Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan had been 'completely and totally obliterated', as Trump said they were in a speech. Iranian lawmaker Mannan Raisi was cited by the semi-official Tasnim News Agency as saying that any material at Fordow that could pose a potential risk to the public 'had already been removed'. The Israeli home command returned the country to a state of emergency, telling citizens to stay close to bomb shelters and safe rooms; banning gatherings; and keeping schools, workplaces and the airport shut. It had eased some of those restrictions in recent days. Still, a sense of victory was palpable. The US strike is something Israelis have been seeking for years and it grants them the sense of being under US protection. It is also a personal victory for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose political fortunes have fallen since the October 2023 assault on Israel by Hamas that triggered the Gaza war.
