PARIS - Extremist Muslims who have fought in Iraq are returning to France with the ability and desire to carry out attacks in Europe, a top counterterrorism investigating judge said Thursday.

In an interview with The Associated Press, judge Jean-Francois Ricard said some French militants travel to Iraq to carry out suicide attacks or fight Iraqi and U.S.-led forces, but others are going to get combat training for use at home.

"The return of some individuals is starting. They're taking round trips. You can't think that once in Iraq, there's no return. It is not true," he said.

"I have confirmation ... of this return with action targeting our countries. We've been starting to see it this year, or in 2004. It's very worrying."

He declined to elaborate on how many French citizens might be involved.

Islamic militants from France have long participated in armed struggles and gotten battle training around the globe, in places like Chechnya, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq, but until recently it was rare for such extremists to bring the violence back with them, Ricard said.

The face of militancy in France and the world is changing with the Iraq war, he said. As with some of the suspects in the London bombings this summer, some French extremists are little known to authorities.

"What's new — and we've seen it more with the emergence of the Iraqi networks in France — is that these are very young people, and totally unknown," Ricard said.

Seven French nationals are known to have been killed in Iraq and three others are being held by police there, Christophe Chaboud, head of the national police's anti-terrorism unit, said in an interview published this week.

French counterterrorism officials say that this year they have broken up four suspected networks feeding French Muslims to the insurgency in Iraq. On Monday, police detained six suspects in suburban Paris as part of an investigation into one such network.

France got an early jump in the counterterrorism fight after attacks in the mid-1980s and mid-1990s by Lebanese and Algerian extremists. It has tough terrorism laws and is looking to tighten them even more.

An anti-terrorism bill to go before the French Cabinet next month would double the maximum penalty in the most common charge applied in terrorism cases to 20 years imprisonment. It would give authorities more power to monitor citizens who travel to countries believed to be bases for terror groups.

The measure also would step up video surveillance. France decided to boost surveillance after seeing Britain's successful use of video cameras in capturing suspects in the July 21 attempted bombings in London.

Ricard praised international cooperation among counterterrorism officials in the sharing and gathering of intelligence but criticized poor coordination on the judicial front. National rules on questioning suspects cause unnecessary and often counterproductive overlaps, he said.

"We are no longer in a national terrorism," Ricard said. "If a person gives interesting testimony and has to provide it again to four other countries to meet national laws ... we're headed for blockage."

He said French judges used testimony collected by American officials in the case of Ahmed Ressam, who was convicted in the United States in July for a failed millennium plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport, but he said there is less coordination within Europe.

"We absolutely must bring the legal structures closer together ... and allow the use of — for example, by the British — of testimony that was conducted in France under the forms of French law," Ricard said.

AP/ yahoonews.com