An advance team of about 30 Ground Self-Defense Force troops arrived in Kuwait on Saturday to examine the security situation in southern Iraq prior to the expected deployment of the main GSDF unit.
The troops, who flew out of Tokyo on Friday aboard a civilian aircraft, arrived at Camp Virginia, a U.S. army base in western Kuwait, where they plan to check their equipment and undergo preliminary training before traveling to the southern Iraqi city of Samawah later this month.
It will be the first time since the end of World War II that Japanese ground troops have been dispatched to a country where hostilities are ongoing.
On Sunday, a chartered Russian Antonov An-124 transport plane carrying eight light armored mobile vehicles from Hokkaido is scheduled to arrive at nearby Abdullah Al-Mubarak Air Base.
At Camp Virginia, the team will undergo training to acclimatize themselves to the desert before traveling north to Samawah. Some of the team will remain in Kuwait to focus on liaison work with the U.S. military.
The members traveling to Iraq will be guarded by Dutch troops as they head to the Dutch military's accommodation facilities in Samawah.
If the Japanese government decides that Samawah is safe, it plans to deploy some 550 GSDF members to provide humanitarian assistance, including restoring water supplies, repairing schools and other infrastructure.
