Europeans were among 150 senior Islamic State group detainees transferred this week by the US military from Kurdish custody in Syria to neighbouring Iraq, whose premier urged EU countries to repatriate their nationals.

They were among an estimated 7,000 jihadists due to be moved to Iraq as the Kurdish-led force that has held them for years relinquishes swathes of territory to the advancing Syrian army.

By Olivia Le Poidevin

GENEVA, Jan 23 (Reuters) - A training centre for hundreds of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank could be closed within days by Israeli authorities, jeopardising the education of students, the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency said on Friday.

The Kalandia Training Centre, which teaches 350 young male students from across the West Bank skills such as plumbing and vehicle maintenance, could be shut, as the land it sits on is at risk of expropriation by Israeli authorities, UNRWA said.

When the Israeli Bedouin village of Tarabin al-Sana backed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's party in the last elections, they expected their lives would improve.

Three years later, the small community in the Negev has been left stunned after a two-week crackdown during which police shot dead a 36-year-old father of six.

Israeli police set up roadblocks, fired tear gas and searched homes in scenes reminiscent of military raids on Palestinian towns in the occupied West Bank.

Tarabin's residents, however, are Israeli citizens.

LONDON, Jan 23 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's comments that NATO troops stayed off the front line in Afghanistan were "deeply disappointing", a British minister said on Friday, noting that many European soldiers had died supporting American-led operations.

Criticising NATO in a Fox News interview on Thursday, Trump said the United States had "never needed" the alliance and that its allies stayed "a little off the front lines" in Afghanistan.

Jan 23 (Reuters) - Syria's Interior Ministry said on Friday it had taken over al-Aktan prison in the city of Raqqa in northeastern Syria, a facility that was formerly under the control of Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The prison has been holding detainees linked to the militant group Islamic State, and witnessed clashes in its vicinity this week between advancing Syrian government forces and the SDF.

MOSCOW, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Russian Admiral Igor Kostyukov is set to head Moscow's team at trilateral security talks with the U.S. and Ukraine on Friday in Abu Dhabi, as part of efforts to reach a deal to end the war in Ukraine.

What do we know about Kostyukov?

CAREER IN MILITARY INTELLIGENCE

Kostyukov is the director of Russia's military intelligence organisation, known as the GRU. Born in 1961, he received a naval education and went on to serve as a military diplomat, which included a posting as a military attache to the Russian embassy in Greece in 2004.

Iran's foreign minister on Friday launched a furious tirade against Volodymyr Zelensky after the Ukrainian president commented in Davos that the deadly crackdown on protests in the Islamic republic showed that if authorities "kill enough people" they stay in power.

Zelensky, whose country has been fighting the full-scale Russian invasion for almost four years, said in a speech at the World Economic Forum on Thursday that if Iran's clerical leadership was able to remain in power, it was a "clear signal to every bully".

By Anna Pruchnicka

KYIV, Jan 23 (Reuters) - President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday that the vital question of territory in Ukraine's war with Russia would be discussed at U.S.-brokered trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi on Friday and Saturday.

Kyiv is under mounting U.S. pressure to secure a peace deal in the nearly four-year-old war with Moscow, which has demanded Ukraine give up its entire eastern area of Donbas before it stops fighting.

Jan 23 (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog must clarify its stance on U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran's nuclear sites last June before inspectors are allowed to visit those facilities, Iranian media on Friday quoted the country's atomic chief as saying.

Mohammad Eslami said the inspections so far had been limited to undamaged sites and he criticised the watchdog for letting Israeli and U.S. pressure influence its actions.

By Emma Farge and Olivia Le Poidevin

GENEVA, Jan 23 (Reuters) - The U.N. Human Rights Council will hold an emergency session on Friday to discuss the "alarming violence" used in Iran against protesters, while a group of states will call on United Nations' investigators to document alleged abuses for future trials.

Rights groups say thousands, including bystanders, were killed during the unrest, which represented the biggest challenge to Iran's clerical government since 2022.