- TOKYO -- Japan was on a high
alert yesterday as an advance unit of about 30 troops left on a controversial
humanitarian mission to Iraq.
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- The troops, who flew out on a commercial airliner, are
expected to arrive in Kuwait today, where they will be trained before travelling
overland to Samawa, in south-eastern Iraq. A further 600 ground troops
are expected to join them by the end of the month, followed by about 400
sailors and air personnel.
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- "You are the pride of the nation," the defence
minister, Shigeru Ishiba, said at a send-off ceremony outside the defence
ministry in Tokyo. "Yours is a noble mission. There are people in
Iraq hoping you will lend them a helping hand."
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- Security was stepped up across Japan in response to a
threat issued last November, purportedly by an al-Qaida operative, to attack
Tokyo as soon as the first Japanese soldiers set foot on Iraqi soil. Police
with sniffer dogs patrolled airports, railway stations, government offices
and nuclear power plants.
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- Many Japanese regard the dispatch as a violation of the
pacifist constitution, but the prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, says
they will help to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure in "safe areas"
and "are not there to take part in a war". But many fear the
lightly armed troops will be easy targets for insurgents.
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004
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- http://www.guardian.co.uk/japan/story/0,7369,1125117,00.html
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