U.S. Commander in Iraq Says Insurgency Homegrown

KIRKUK, Iraq (Reuters) - The commander of U.S. forces in Iraq's northern province of Kirkuk said on Friday he had no evidence foreign Muslim militants were fighting alongside former Baathists he blamed for anti-U.S. attacks.

"I'm very uncomfortable about saying Islamists are involved," Colonel William Mayville told Reuters at a sprawling air base on the edge of Kirkuk.

"It's 90 percent former regime loyalists and 10 percent is a margin of error. I have no evidence of links to Islamists."

But Mayville, commander of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, said that view might change if it was confirmed that Thursday's bomb blast that killed five people outside a Kurdish party office in Kirkuk was the work of a suicide attacker.

more