Another Japanese man planned to join the Islamic State militant group along with a 26-year-old student who is already under investigation, police sources said on Wednesday.
The unidentified man is suspected of planning to leave for Syria on Oct. 7, along with the Hokkaido University student and journalist Kosuke Tsuneoka, 45, the sources alleged.
Police investigators are questioning the man about details of the plan.
Tsuneoka reportedly planned to cover the pair's journey.
The man decided to go to Syria after looking at a recruiting poster in a secondhand bookstore in Tokyo's Akihabara district, the police sources claimed.
A man in his 30s who had ties with the bookstore and lived with the student put up the poster, the sources said.
Tsuneoka said the man joined him and the student in Tokyo on Oct. 4 to discuss their plan to go to Syria.
He said that the man, who described himself as a photographer and an Islamist, told him at the time that he wished to visit Syria as a photojournalist, according to the sources.
Several other people reportedly inquired about the offer to join the militant group, but none left Japan for Syria, the sources said.