Two Japanese freelance journalists were killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack on their vehicle south of Baghdad, their Iraqi driver told the hospital where the incinerated bodies were taken yesterday.
Hospital director Imad al-Maliki said the bodies were completely unrecognizable after the attack on Thursday afternoon, but the driver of the vehicle had told him they were the bodies of two Japanese freelance journalists.
Japan's foreign ministry, which confirmed the attack but said it did not know the fate of the Japanese, said the two involved were Shinsuke Hashida, a well-known 61-year-old freelance journalist, and his nephew, 33-year-old Kotaro Ogawa.
On Friday morning their gutted four-wheel-drive vehicle was still at the scene of the attack, its tyres burned off and its paintwork stained black by smoke. A single shoe lay in the back of the car.
Japan's top government spokes-man said the attack would not "greatly affect" Japan's existing contribution of some 550 ground troops to help rebuild Iraq, a move which divided Japanese opinion.
The journalists were returning from Japan's military base in the southern town of Samawa when they were attacked near the town of Mahmudiya, about 30km south of Baghdad, a spokesman for Japanese forces in Iraq told reporters.
They were travelling with a driver and translator, whose fate was not immediately clear.
The area around Mahmudiya is one of the most dangerous spots in Iraq with repeated insurgent attacks on US military convoys, foreign contractors and journalists in recent months.
Three weeks ago a Polish and an Algerian journalist were killed in a drive-by shooting on the same road. A CNN crew was attacked in the same area earlier this year, leaving two dead.
The deaths, if confirmed, would be the third and fourth of Japanese citizens in Iraq since the US-led invasion last year and the first since Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi sent troops. Two diplomats were killed in November when their car was attacked near Tikrit.
The latest incident will provoke furious debate in Japan but might not damage Koizumi's ruling coalition -- which faces an election for parliament's upper house in July -- given that the journalists had traveled to Iraq of their own accord, some political analysts said.
Tokyo financial markets were little affected.
Japan, a close US ally, has about 550 troops around the southern city of Samawa on a mission designed to help with reconstruction work. It sent the troops on a non-combat mission that is its riskiest military operation since World War II.
"Near Baghdad there are many areas where security is bad," said chief cabinet secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda. "But this is quite a different situation from Samawah ... I don't think this incident itself will greatly affect the military dispatch," he said.
Some Japanese say the troop dispatch violated Japan's pacifist constitution and many worry it has made the country more vulnerable to attacks at home.
Reports of worsening security conditions in southern Iraq have also raised questions about whether the dispatch still meets the requirement of a law passed last year which limits the soldiers' activities to "non-combat zones."
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
RSS