New Delhi, June 25 -- Indian carriers on Tuesday announced that they would resume flight operations to the Middle East in a phased manner, a day after several countries in the region closed their airspace amid escalating tensions in West Asia. After Iran launched air strikes at a US military base in Qatar on Monday night, several countries in the Middle East, including UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait, temporarily closed their airspace. On Tuesday, many of these countries opened their airspace even as the closure resulted in carriers cancelling or diverting flights. According to Cirium, an aviation analytics company, at least nine flights en route to different countries in the Middle East had to return to their original destination due to the airspace closures. "The sudden airspace closure of the Middle East on Monday night led to flight diversions. While many were able to return to their destination airports in Delhi and Mumbai, few had to be diverted to Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai," an Airports Authority of India (AAI) official said on condition of anony- mity. "The flights, however, were handled and assigned airports by 12.45am." As multiple Gulf countries announced the reopening of their airspace on Tuesday, Air India said that it will resume most of the flights to and from the region by Wednesday. "As airspaces gradually reopen in certain parts of the Middle East, Air India will progressively resume flights to the region starting today, with most operations to and from the Middle East resuming from 25 June," an Air India spokesperson said....