SAMAWAH, Iraq -- An advance Ground Self-Defense Force team vowed to cement ties with the Iraqi people after arriving at a Dutch base near here Monday evening.

The local populace meanwhile turned out to welcome them.

"We hope that our activities will lead to enhanced relations between the Iraqis and Japan," said Col. Masahisa Sato, who heads the team of about 30 GSDF members, after the team arrived at Camp Smitty, about 7 km south of central Samawah.

The team is in Iraq to prepare for the deployment of some 550 ground troops.

A special law enacted in July paved the way for the dispatch of the Self-Defense Forces to help rebuild Iraq.

"The advance unit's duty is to gather information related to (local) security and humanitarian reconstruction aid necessary for activities of the main units," Sato said.

Just a day after its arrival, the team began paying visits to local leaders and influential figures as well as holding talks with the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority to study the security situation.

The team inspected a candidate site for housing the GSDF and visited the CPA's office in Samawah for about three hours. Sources familiar with the talks said they are believed to have exchanged views with CPA and Dutch military officials on security and social issues in Samawah and its vicinity.

Tokyo plans to have the GSDF provide drinking water and medical aid, and repair schools and other public facilities, in the Samawah vicinity.

Many in Samawah are counting on the Japanese to rebuild the city.

The city is gripped by Japan-mania: Welcoming banners in Arabic and Japanese grace the market, and merchants have stocked up on goods they hope the Japanese will want. Many in this city on the banks of the Euphrates River are counting on the troops to put an end to the constant power outages and sanitation problems that have plagued them since the U.S.-led coalition toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in April.

"The people here think the Japanese are like a genie from a bottle," said Yousef Jaber al-Mohsen, deputy editor of the Samawah Weekly Journal, which is published every 10 days.

The enthusiasm runs from the city's business establishment to the mosques that support a maverick Shiite Muslim cleric opposed to the U.S.-led coalition.

"They are going to improve the town 100 percent," said Anmar Khudir, a goldsmith in the town's market. "We will have clean water to drink, electricity, maybe even less crime."

Earlier this month, Khudir organized the Association of Japanese Friendship, a group of about 100 businessmen and professionals from Samawah.

"We heard Japanese people were very worried about their soldiers because it was the first time in many years that they were going to be in a war," he said. "So we wanted to comfort them, tell them people here are not against them. There is no war here against Japan."

So far, the group's main activity has been putting up the banners. One in Arabic declares, "Along with our Japanese friends, we will help to rebuild this city." Another proclaims in Japanese, "Welcome to the Self-Defense Forces."

Karim Mohammad Ali, the manager of a mosque near the market, said he would ordinarily be opposed to the presence of more foreign troops in Iraq.

"But the Japanese are different -- they are here to build, not destroy," he said.

In Tokyo, possible attacks on Japanese troops meanwhile remained a big concern at the Defense Agency.

The advance team is "engaging in the sensitive activities of assessing local security, and their activities will end shortly," Defense Agency chief Shigeru Ishiba said Tuesday in explaining the agency's strict restriction on media coverage of the advance team.

Col. Sato is the only one allowed to speak to reporters. The agency fears releasing the identities of other members could invite unwanted attacks on their families in Japan from radical opponents of the deployment of the SDF to Iraq.