Japan will not back down from its plan to dispatch Self-Defense Forces troops to Iraq, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said Wednesday.

His comments followed incidents in which gunshots were fired at the Japanese Embassy in Baghdad and a terrorist threat was made against Tokyo.

Fukuda told a regularly scheduled news conference that the government was still investigating the nature of the shots, which were fired early Tuesday morning.

"It is still not clear whether the shots were targeting the embassy," he said. "We are still looking into the details.

"We already have very tight security arrangements around the embassy, but we will beef up (existing) measures if necessary."

Asked whether the latest shots or the threatening statement, allegedly issued by al-Qaeda, will affect Tokyo's SDF dispatch plan, Fukuda said, "We have to look into the background (of these events), but we should not be swayed by individual incidents."

A government official later said the shots were apparently fired from an intersection 80 meters from a protective concrete wall that had been erected around the actual embassy complex wall. Iraqi security guards are stationed outside the protective wall, and one of them returned fire at the shooters, who escaped in a car.

The embassy reported the incident to the American-led occupation authority and asked it to tighten security around the embassy, the official said.

Dutch guard Japanese

SAMAWAH, Iraq (Kyodo) A Japanese inspection team that mainly consists of Ground Self-Defense Force officers is being protected by armed Dutch soldiers while it studies the security situation here.

The team arrived Tuesday in Samawah, a candidate site for a dispatch of Self-Defense Forces troops. It will spend up to two weeks examining the security situation in southern Iraq.

The team, which is staying at a base for Dutch troops in Samawah, is escorted by armed Dutch soldiers every time it travels in the area due to mounting reports about attacks targeting occupation forces.