Basra: Second Japanese contingent enter Iraq

The unit, most of them engineers, traveled from the U.S. Camp Virginia in the Kuwaiti to join other Japanese troops in Samawa, 270 kilometers southern to Baghdad. The convoy included armored vehicles, trucks, personnel carriers. The number of the troops in the convoy was declared as 140. The troops will purify water and carry out other humanitarian tasks in Iraq. The Japanese troops in Iraq will be armed with pistols, rifles, machine guns and anti-tank guns to use in self defense only. Japanese soldiers will stay in the combat zone until they complete their humanitarian mission, even if they are killed in the possible attacks. Japan has so far dispatched advance teams and three C-130 cargo planes to the region. Japan will sent total 600 troops, 400 of them are members of airforces and seaforces, until the end of the next month.