The 30-member advance Ground Self-Defense Force team to be deployed to Iraq later this month will probably first travel through Kuwait City in a convoy of armored vehicles en route to U.S. Camp Virginia in the Kuwaiti desert, according to government sources.
The team, which will be armed, is slated to arrive in Kuwait aboard a commercial jetliner. As this will be the first operation for the GSDF in its mission to help another country where fighting is taking place, the Defense Agency is worried that the convoy may come under attack.
The agency is making final arrangements with Kuwaiti authorities and U.S. forces to decide on the team's route, as well as measures to protect it, the sources said.