By Hugh Bronstein

BOGOTA, July 24 (Reuters) - The Colombian government may be using foreign mercenaries to try to rescue hostages held by leftist rebels, including French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, the country's biggest guerrilla group said.

A month after 11 provincial lawmakers were killed in what the rebels called a botched rescue attempt by an unidentified military force, a top guerrilla commander said there were "indications" of multinational mercenary units in Colombia.

"There are a lot of rumors of commando units including American, British and Israeli mercenaries penetrating the jungle and looking for ways to brings down the FARC," Raul Reyes of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) told Caracas-based TeleSUR television late on Monday.

The mercenaries were trying to rescue FARC kidnap victims and achieve what Reyes called other "criminal" objectives.

"This is obviously being ordered by (President) Alvaro Uribe," Reyes said. "It is a possibility that is out there, which is why we call them unidentified forces."

There was no immediate reaction from the government.

Days earlier, Reyes said state and "para-state" forces participated in the June 18 rescue attempt in which the 11 lawmakers were killed.

Analysts say the killings may have been prompted by an incursion of illegal paramilitary forces into the area where the FARC was holding the hostages.

Uribe is popular for cutting crime and attracting foreign investment under his U.S.-backed crackdown on guerrillas fighting a four-decade-old insurgency.

"The FARC is feeling the heat from Uribe's successful security strategy and they know their image was hurt by the deaths of the lawmakers last month," said Pablo Casas, an analyst with Bogota thinktank Security and Democracy.

"So they are trying to bring other possible actors into the story in order to distract attention from the fact that they were responsible for the lives of these hostages."

The guerrillas seized the 11 lawmakers in 2002 by pretending to be soldiers and escorting them onto a bus from a government building in Cali, saying there was a bomb scare.

Betancourt was captured the same year while running for Colombia's presidency. The FARC is also holding three American defense contractors taken in 2003 during an anti-drug mission.

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