Japan: Troops will stay in Iraq

[Hoss68]

April 08, 2004

Japan: Troops will stay in Iraq

By Gary Schaefer
Associated Press


TOKYO — Japan said Thursday it would not withdraw its troops from Iraq despite video showing three Japanese civilians being held hostage by insurgents who threatened to burn the Japanese alive if Tokyo did not withdraw from the U.S.-led coalition.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda told a news conference the government had yet to confirm the kidnapping even though pictures of the captives hit Japanese television screens at prime time.

The video was originally aired by Arab satellite television station Al-Jazeera and showed the blindfolded male and female aid workers and a male journalist surrounded by their four captors armed with automatic rifles and swords.

Al-Jazeera, broadcasting to Iraq and the rest of the Arab world, showed portions of a tape from a previously unknown group calling itself the “Mujahedeen Squadrons.”

Standing firm in the face of the kidnap drama, Fukuda insisted Japan would fulfill its commitment to help rebuild Iraq, saying there was “no reason” to halt a noncombat mission by about 1,000 Japanese troops

“We are providing humanitarian support and there is no reason to pull out,” he said. The Japanese troops are supplying water and repairing roads in southern Iraq.

Fukuda said senior officials were holding emergency meetings to confirm the reported hostage-taking and said it would be “unforgiveable” if it proved true.

“If innocent civilians have been kidnapped as reported, it would be unforgivable and we would demand their immediate release,” he said.

Fukuda said Vice Foreign Minister Ichiro Aisawa was being dispatched to Anman on Friday morning to coordinate the Japanese government’s response.

He said Japanese forces in Iraq had been ordered to tighten security.

The kidnapping was reported just a day after Japanese forces in Iraq came under attack for the first time since arriving at their base in southern Iraq in January.

Three blasts were heard overnight outside the perimeter of a base near the southern city of Samawah where about 500 Japanese ground troops are stationed. The explosions caused no injuries or damage, and troops investigating found evidence that mortar rounds had landed several hundred meters (yards) away.

Japanese leaders said they would not be intimidated by what appeared to be the first attack on their military forces since they arrived in southern Iraq in January.

“Terrorists just want to create confusion. They are trying to make the Self-Defense Forces withdraw,” Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters. “I think this was part of such scare tactics.”

Koizumi has not spoken to the media since Al-Jazeera’s broadcast of the kidnapping Thursday night Japan time.

The passports shown in the footage identified the three captives as Soichiro Koriyama, 32, a freelance journalist; and aid workers Noriaki Imai, 18, and Nahoko Takato, 34. Japanese media reported that Imai had sent an his e-mail to his family on Wednesday saying he was heading from Amman, Jordan, to Baghdad with the other two Japanese.