April 17, 2018
The daily logs from Ground Self-Defense Force units in Iraq, which the Defense Ministry made public on April 16, contained the statement, “Battles escalated.”
The daily logs in question were said to have been “nonexistent” for the past year. However, Defense Minister Onodera Itsunori earlier this month announced the discovery of the logs.
The published daily records were kept by GSDF troops between 2004 and 2006 during their mission in Samawah, southern Iraq, consisting of about 15,000 pages that cover 435 days.
Among those records, the daily journal dated January 22, 2006 stated that on the previous day, the Sadr militia, one of the Iraqi rebel groups, began firing at military vehicles of the British forces assigned to policing duties in Samawah. It went on to state that “as the fighting escalated, the Iraqi police and Iraqi army intervened in order to restore civilian order”, but “the fighting is likely to continue.”
The daily records dated August 21 and 24, 2005, also referred to “battles” against anti-government forces in Iraq.
On the other hand, as for the daily logs for 2004, the released records reported only three days of the GSDF mission. During this year, however, the SDF camp in Samawah frequently experienced rocket and mortar attacks. As many passages in the three-day report were blacked out, it is difficult to obtain exact information about the “battlefield”.
Past related articles:
> Gov't found to have failed to control SDF [April 6, 2018]
> Defense Ministry should clarify allegation of cover-up over documents regarding SDF Iraq mission [April 4, 2018]
The daily logs in question were said to have been “nonexistent” for the past year. However, Defense Minister Onodera Itsunori earlier this month announced the discovery of the logs.
The published daily records were kept by GSDF troops between 2004 and 2006 during their mission in Samawah, southern Iraq, consisting of about 15,000 pages that cover 435 days.
Among those records, the daily journal dated January 22, 2006 stated that on the previous day, the Sadr militia, one of the Iraqi rebel groups, began firing at military vehicles of the British forces assigned to policing duties in Samawah. It went on to state that “as the fighting escalated, the Iraqi police and Iraqi army intervened in order to restore civilian order”, but “the fighting is likely to continue.”
The daily records dated August 21 and 24, 2005, also referred to “battles” against anti-government forces in Iraq.
On the other hand, as for the daily logs for 2004, the released records reported only three days of the GSDF mission. During this year, however, the SDF camp in Samawah frequently experienced rocket and mortar attacks. As many passages in the three-day report were blacked out, it is difficult to obtain exact information about the “battlefield”.
Past related articles:
> Gov't found to have failed to control SDF [April 6, 2018]
> Defense Ministry should clarify allegation of cover-up over documents regarding SDF Iraq mission [April 4, 2018]
