Newly arrived troops harmonize with $5 billion Iraqi pledge...
Nearly 200 Japanese ground troops, including 11 women, have arrived in Kuwait en route to southern Iraq as part of Tokyo's humanitarian mission to the war-ravaged nation. The group, the largest single contingent of Self Defense Forces so far, flew aboard two government Boeing 747 aircraft.
They were taken by buses to Camp Virginia, a US military base in the desert, where they will undergo training before crossing the northern border into Iraq, Lieutenant Colonel Shigeru Yamasaki, head of the Task Planning and Liaison Unit, said.
They will "within the next few days" join about 240 troops already in the southern city of Samawa carrying out humanitarian work, Yamasaki said.
By the end of March, another 120 ground troops, the final contingent of Japan's some 550-strong humanitarian mission, will leave for Iraq.
It is the first combat zone mission for Japanese troops since World War II and has sparked controversy because of the nation's post-war pacifist constitution, which bans the use of force in settling international disputes.
Japan has also pledged five billion dollars (four billion euros) between 2004 and 2007 to help rebuild Iraq.
