The circumstances surrounding the kidnapping and killing of Japanese aid worker Kazuya Ito in Afghanistan last month remain unclear. In the web journal Japan Focus, Michael Penn conjectures that Ito's death resulted from a "botched effort to abduct him, not . . . premeditated murder." The gunshot wounds that caused Ito to bleed to death may have been inflicted in the shootout between his kidnappers and local police.
Penn discusses two plausible reasons for the abduction. One is that Pakistani militant groups carried it out in order to undermine the rehabilitation efforts of the current regime in Kabul. The other is that this past summer Japan was considering sending Ground Self-Defense Force troops to Afghanistan, and while the proposal has since been shelved, such talk may have spurred militant groups to target Japanese in Afghanistan.
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party managed to find a use for the tragedy. During a press conference on Aug. 28, the day after Ito's body was identified, Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura mourned the loss of "a precious life" and said that Ito's death meant that Japan has to do more to fight terrorism. "I believe that this is how the Japanese people feel," he concluded.