Colombo, Jan 8 (IANS): SriLankan Airlines, the island nation's flag carrier, announced on Wednesday that it has changed the route of its Colombo-London-Colombo flights to avoid the airspaces of Iran and Iraq due to heightened tensions in the region.

The precautionary measure came into immediate effect, the Colombo Page quoted the airlines as saying.

SriLankan Airlines said it was closely monitoring the situation and was in contact with relevant national and international authorities, with the safety of its passengers and crew members being of paramount importance.

The announcement came on the same day Tehran attacked the Ain-al-Asad military base in Iraq housing US troops and a Washington-operated airbase in Erbil in retaliation for the January 3 drone attack that killed Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad.

The flag carriers of Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan also said on Wednesday that they would divert flights over Iran's airspace.