ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - The recent transfer of over 5,700 Islamic State (ISIS) prisoners to Iraq has bolstered the country’s cooperation with international partners, the head of Iraq’s National Center for International Judicial Cooperation said Sunday, adding that Baghdad has teamed up with several countries to combat terrorism and organized crime.

The prisoner transfer has contributed “to the development of mechanisms for information management, archiving, analysis and coordination with judicial and foreign diplomatic authorities,” owing to the file’s size and complexity, and its connection with thousands of defendants from dozens of nationalitites, said Ali Hussein Jafat.

Iraq received the prisoners from Syria, after a January Syrian government offensive in Rojava (northeast Syria) raised fears that detention facilities previously operated by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) could lose control of the inmates amid the conflict.

Interrogations of the prisoners ended in early September, which found that the detainees include people from 67 nationalities, including 16 Arab countries, 19 European countries and 32 other foreign nationalities, while 3,497 of the prisoners are Syrian and 474 are Iraqi.

Iraqi security forces have partnered with several nations to bring suspected criminals to justice, according to the head of the international judicial cooperation center.

Iraqi authorities, in coordination with the United States, arrested a suspected ISIS member accused of being involved in the New Orleans vehicle ramming on the 2025 New Year’s Eve, which killed 15 people and injured 30 others, said Jafat.

In addition to the US, Iraq has coordinated with several other nations in bringing suspected criminals to justice, according to the head of the international judicial cooperation center.

Information obtained by Iraqi authorities helped thwart a terrorist attack targeting civilian gatherings in Germany’s Hamburg in May, according to Jafat, who added that there are other proceeding cases between the two countries regarding terrorism.

Spanish authorities also arrested two suspected terrorists in the cities of Cartagena and Ferrol following information from the Iraqi judicial cooperation center.

The center has also helped countries combat organized crime like the arrest of Kazem Hamad, a central figure in Melbourne’s tobacco wars following a coordinated effort between Baghdad and Canberra.

He was deported from Australia in 2023 and later arrested in Iraq in January earlier this year, where he was charged with, among other things, smuggling narcotics into both countries.

Iraq has also worked with Swedish authorities to the arrest “a number of the most prominent members of organized crime networks,” Jafat said.

Iraqi and Kurdish security forces have arrested several suspects wanted by Sweden, with many being part of the infamous “Foxtrot Network.”

Foxtrot - established in 2010 - is a major criminal Network involved in bombings, shootings, drug trafficking and other violent crimes and is led by the Kurdish-Swedish Rawa Majid known as “the Kurdish Fox (Kurdiska Raven).”

In January, the Kurdistan Region's security forces (Asayish) announced the arrest of Ali Shehab in Sulaimani, a suspected key figure in the Foxtrot Network, who was accused of ordering murders.