The first unit of the main Air Self-Defense Force contingent left for Kuwait on Thursday afternoon.
A total of 110 ASDF members left Komaki Air Base in Aichi Prefecture on a government jet in the third wave of Japan's controversial deployment of noncombat service members to help rebuild Iraq.
Some 400 opponents to the deployment, including college students and members of civic groups, held a rally around the Komaki base, while around 70 supporters of the dispatch displayed signs wishing the airmen well.