Qom

Israeli media report that high-ranking officials in their country have pointed to the Quds Force, one of five branches of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), specializing in unconventional warfare and military intelligence, is behind the foiled plot to bomb a Jewish restaurant and an attached cultural and religious center in Athens.

Bomb-carrying drones targeted an Iranian defense factory in the central city of Isfahan overnight, authorities said early Sunday, causing some damage at the plant amid heightened regional and international tensions engulfing the Islamic Republic.

No coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Turkey so far, the nation's health minister said on March 9. 

Addressing reporters in the capital Ankara after a meeting of the council addressing the coronavirus threat, Fahrettin Koca said the Health Ministry and the rest of the government have taken all measures to prevent coronavirus from entering Turkey.

Turkey has yet to see any confirmed case of the coronavirus, but that does not mean there will never be any, said the country's top health official on Feb. 26, a day after a plane carrying 132 Turkish passengers flying from Tehran landed in Ankara, all of whom are being kept under quarantine.

A Turkish Airlines plane flying from Iran to Istanbul was diverted to Ankara on Feb. 25 at the Turkish Health Ministry's request, according to local media reports.

The plane, carrying 132 passengers, was flying from Tehran to Istanbul.

The plane has landed at Ankara's Esenboğa Airport.

Turkey has announced that it suspended railway services over its Iranian border due to the number of coronavirus cases in its eastern neighbor.

Turkish State Railways (TCDD) said in a written statement that passenger and freights trains between Turkey and Iran has been temporarily halted, starting from 5:00 p.m. local time (1400GMT) on Feb. 23.

Turkey has started to screen travelers arriving from Iran at border gates and is refusing entry to anyone with signs of illness after four people died from the new virus that emerged in China, along with 750 suspected cases.

Representatives of Iraqi Shia groups have decided to unite to expel U.S. forces from Iraq, a spokesman for one of them said on Jan. 14.

The decision to "unite and coordinate forces" was taken to fully liberate Iraq from U.S. forces, Nasr al-Shammari, from the Al Nujaba Movement, told Iraq's official news agency INA.

Iranian authorities have ordered  several schools in in Tehran and several other cities in the country to be closed today because of the dangerous air pollution, health reports stated.

Tehran lay under a thick cloud of smog considered hazardous to health for several days now. Yesterday, the cloud could be seen from the valleys more than 20 kilometers north of the city.

During the spy games of WWII, the result of the war was hanging by a thread. Gevorg Vartanian, a young Armenian who joined the Soviet intelligence circle through his father, proved to be a valuable asset, even when he was 16 years old. Vartanian’s father posed as a rich Persian merchant in Tehran for 23 years, having moved there in 1930 when his son was six years old.