Iraq and Syria are but two of the airspaces currently closed to EK operations.
I think, as 747-436 has mentioned, Flight Aware does not always show the exact routing but rather an estimated (Great Circle) routing.
During the few weeks that the Sana'a (Yemen) FIR was closed, Flight Aware was showing EK flights to and from Africa routing directly south over the Horn of Africa rather than the actual routing east over the Indian Ocean.