ANKARA (Sputnik) - Turkey has started testing plasma therapy as a possible treatment for the coronavirus disease, Turkish Red Crescent Society President Kerem Kinik said on Tuesday.

The US has recently been withdrawing its military forces from the Middle Eastern country following a major scandal after the US Air Force killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani at Baghdad Airport shortly after he arrived on a secret diplomatic mission.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday declared a general three-day lockdown starting at 4 p.m. (13:00 GMT) on 7 April to prevent people from traveling to festive meals that are traditionally held on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Passover, which starts this Wednesday.

The call comes as the world struggles with a rapidly spreading virus pandemic which has so far infected over 1.3 million people around the globe, killing over 73,000. Iran is one of the countries hit hardest by COVID-19 and has been struggling to slow the outbreak, a task made more difficult as the nation is under severe US trade sanctions.

Police in Dubai - located in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) - revealed that artificial intelligence (AI) will be used to determine who is breaking the strict restrictions on movement that will be in place over the next two weeks amid the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.

Earlier, Kurdish media reported that Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the US-sponsored international coalition had redeployed their troops to the Syrian cities of Al-Hasakah, Qamishli, Al-Malikiyah and Deir ez-Zor to "protect oil fields and fight sleeper cells" said to belong to Daesh*.

Tel Aviv's relations with Rome have been cordial for the most part, even the raging coronavirus and the Jewish state's decision to suspend flights between the nations that stirred initial dissatisfaction in Rome couldn't damage them, believes Israel's former ambassador to the Mediterranean country.

On Saturday, Iran’s Ambassador to Belgium Gholamhossein Dehghani underscored that Washington's anti-Iranian sanctions “undermine Tehran's ability to effectively fight the virus in the long run without international support”.

On Sunday, the Israeli Health Ministry reported that the death toll from the COVID-19 outbreak in the country has climbed to 51.

In late March, the US military deployed its Patriot missile defence system to the Ayn al-Asad base in Iraq in a move to "protect against another potential Iranian attack”.

ANKARA (Sputnik) - The Turkish Defenсe Ministry has ordered to minimise the movement of its military in Syria due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Russian side of the Russian-Turkish commission monitoring the implementation of the Syrian truce has recorded one ceasefire violation in Syria over the past 24 hours, the Russian Defence Ministry said in its daily bulletin on Sunday.

Saudi Arabia has called for an emergency meeting of OPEC+, as oil prices hit an 18-year low at the end of March, amid calls from US President Donald Trump to stabilise the global oil market. International energy experts say that Riyadh's power play hasn't panned out and it is time for a joint US-Saudi-Russian deal for the flailing market.

ANKARA (Sputnik) - More than 3,000 new cases of COVID-19 and 73 more deaths have been reported in Turkey over the past 24 hours, the country’s Minister of Health Fahrettin Koca announced on Sunday.

KABUL (Sputnik) - An airstrike in the central Afghan province of Uruzgan left at least eight civilians killed and two others critically injured in the early hours of Sunday, a source in the regional government said, adding that it was unclear if the attack was carried out by the government forces or the US-led international troops.

Dr Scott Stripling is known for sharing his views on the “anti-biblical bias” among today’s archaeologists, expounding in his books in layman’s terms the convergences between the biblical text and the archaeological discoveries from the lands of the Bible.

BAGHDAD (Sputnik) - The Iraqi security forces have found a burial of Daesh* victims in the country's western Anbar province, the Iraqi National Intelligence Service said in a statement on Sunday.

Late last month, the US-led international coalition’s headquarters in the northern Iraqi province of Nineveh near the Syrian border was reportedly transferred to the Iraqi Army, who earlier took over several local military bases left by coalition troops.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates (CBUAE) on Sunday said it had rolled out a set of capital and liquidity relief measures worth a total of 256 billion UAE dirham ($69.7 billion) to support the country's economy and banking sector throughout the COVID-19 crisis.

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force head Qasem Soleimani was killed on 3 January, when the US military conducted a drone airstrike on Baghdad International Airport that had been authorised by President Donald Trump “aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans”.