France, Jan. 24 -- Europeans were among 150 senior Islamic State (IS) detainees transferred this week by the US military from Kurdish custody in Syria to neighbouring Iraq, as Baghdad renewed calls for EU states to take back and prosecute their nationals.

The group forms part of a far larger population of jihadist prisoners now being moved as the Kurdish-led forces that have guarded them for years relinquish territory to Syria's advancing army.

Iraqi officials say as many as 7,000 IS detainees could ultimately be transferred.

IS seized vast areas of Syria and Iraq in 2014, carrying out mass killings and forcing women and girls into sexual slavery. The group was eventually defeated in Syria in 2019 by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic F...