U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday that his decision to leave a small number of U.S. troops in Syria did not constitute a reversal of his plan to withdraw all troops from the country. “I am not reversing course,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

Anti-liberal Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin strongly criticized Russian presidential aide Vladislav Surkov’s highly controversial article, titled “Putin’s Long State” that appeared in Nezavisimaya Gazeta on February 11, 2019.[1]The criticism is striking, because Surkov’s espousal of an authentic Russian model that is superior to the West should have ostensibly pleased Dugin.

U.S.-backed Syrian forces fighting the Islamic State group handed over more than 150 Iraqi members of the group to Iraq, an Iraqi security official said Thursday, marking the biggest repatriation from Syria of captured militants so far.