HIROSHIMA (Kyodo) Two destroyers left Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, on Tuesday to hold their first antipiracy exercise as Japan gears up to join international efforts off Somalia.
The live-fire exercises, which will take place in the Bungo Channel between Shikoku and Kyushu, involve the 4,650-ton Sazanami and 4,550-ton Samidare, according to the Kure District Headquarters of the Maritime Self-Defense Force.
The warships will fire at targets disguised as pirate boats with machineguns and other rapid-fire weapons. Their helicopters will also engage in target practice, MSDF officers said.
About 370 service members, including elements of the MSDF's elite Special Boarding Unit, will take part in the exercise, they said.
The vessels will return to port Friday.
Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said Tuesday that the destroyers will probably be dispatched to Somalia in early to mid-March at the latest.
He said the order will be given once the government submits the antipiracy bill to the Diet early next month.
The primary purpose of the bill is to ease restrictions on weapons use, but the ships can be deployed with or without the bill.
The deployment would take place under a maritime police action provision in the Self-Defense Forces Law, which restricts the MSDF's use of force in antipiracy operations to self-defense.
But Hamada said that arrangement should only be temporary, and it will eventually be underpinned by a new law that authorizes the SDF to be deployed specifically for overseas antipiracy missions.
Hamada has suggested the new law should make it easier to use weapons when engaging pirates.
It is unclear, however, if that will happen given the opposition expected in the Diet and the potential for conflict with the war-renouncing Constitution.
