 14 rockets fired at SDF base in Iraq in the one year It is one year since the Ground Self-Defense Force's advance team left Japan on January 16 to assist in the U.S.-led de facto occupation of Iraq by establishing a base in the southern Iraqi city of Samawah. In the past year, a total of 14 rockets were fired over nine times at the SDF base. Since last October, three rockets landed on the base site. This shows that attackers are determined to attack Japan's military force in Iraq with accuracy. On the evening of January 11 in the GSDF Samawah base, a rocket attack was made followed by an alarm, and SDF personnel had to dash into a bomb-proof shelter. The next morning, they found a defused rocket near the shelter. A Shiite group near the SDF base site is denouncing the SDF as a member of the occupation forces. It is not the GSDF Samawah base alone that has been threatened with rocket and mortar attacks. Trench mortar bombs were shot against the U.S. Camp Victory in Baghdad, where four GSDF personnel have been deployed as liaison officers with the multi-national forces. Last October, a trench mortar bomb killed a U.S. diplomat at that base. Ignoring the public demand that the SDF immediately withdraw from Iraq, the Defense Agency ordered improving the bomb-proofing of the GSDF's shelter. (end) |