Japanese military contingent in Iraq

On February 19, 2002, Japan's National Defense Department chief Geng Nakatani made a statement that Japan would refrain from openly supporting the US should Washington strike a military strike against Iraq. ^[2]

On March 18, 2003, the Prime Minister of Japan issued a statement that the Japanese government supported the ultimatum of the United States put forward by Iraq ^[3] .

On June 13, 2003, the Japanese government approved a bill to send Japanese troops to Iraq ^[4] ; in July 2003, the Japanese parliament approved the bill.

On July 11, 2003, two S-130 transport aircraft of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces flew from the Komaki air base to the Iraqi region for the transportation of humanitarian goods sent there through the UN ^[5] .

At the beginning of October 2003, it was announced that the total strength of the Japanese military contingent would be from 600 to 700 troops, with an advanced detachment of 100 troops sent to southern Iraq in December 2003, and the rest would be deployed later. The main functions of the contingent were to be repair and restoration work, rear supply and support forces MNF-I ^[6] . It was assumed that Japanese troops would be in Iraq for two years (although the possibility of extending the operation was not ruled out) ^[7] .

The first Japanese troops from the advance detachment were sent to Iraq in November 2003 ^[6] .

On November 29, 2003, a car with Japanese diplomats was attacked in the Tikrit region of northern Iraq. As a result of shelling from small arms, 36 bullets fell into a Toyota Land Cruiser jeep, killing a contract driver (Iraqi citizen) and two Japanese diplomats (adviser Katsuhiko Oku and third secretary of the Japanese embassy in Baghdad Masamori Inoue ) ^{[8] [9]} .

On December 19, 2003, the Minister of Defense ordered the dispatch of the main forces ^[10] . After several days of acclimatization at the US military base Camp Virginia in Kuwait , in January 2004 the first Japanese troops arrived in Iraq ^[11] . In mid-January 2004, ^{[12] a} Japanese contingent (600 troops) was stationed in the city of Es Samava in southern Iraq ^[13] . This was the first international operation of the self-defense forces, carried out without UN sanction ^[14] .

According to a public opinion poll conducted at that time by the largest Japanese news agency, Kyodo Tsushin , 51.6% of respondents did not support the country's participation in the operation in Iraq ^[15] .

At the beginning of 2004, a fortified base was built on the outskirts of the city, surrounded by a perimeter with a moat, an earthen embankment and barbed wire fences . The base security system included video surveillance cameras, thermal imagers , security alarm sensors and a counter-battery radar ^[16] .

While in Iraq, the Japanese contingent was in the zone of responsibility of the Australian forces ^[17] and, in the course of its activity, interacted with the Australian military and local police ^[18] .

On the evening of February 16, 2004, two rockets were fired at the National Defense Administration building in Tokyo. There were no casualties, during a search at a metropolitan cemetery, the police found two improvised launchers that were used to launch missiles. Responsibility for the shelling was claimed by the ultra-left radical organization Kakurokio, which reported that the shelling was carried out in protest against the sending of Japanese troops to Iraq ^[19] .

On April 7, 2004, three Japanese citizens ( Soichiro Koriyama , Nahoko Takato and Noriaki Imai ) were kidnapped in Baghdad ^[20] , after which the Saraya al-Mujahedin militants who captured them demanded that the Japanese government withdraw troops from Iraq ^[21] . After negotiations with the participation of the Sunni community on April 15, 2004, all three hostages were released ^[22] .

On April 15, 2004, two more Japanese were kidnapped in the Falluja area (journalists Jumpei Yasuda and Nobutaka Watanabe ), but three days later they were released and returned to Japan ^[23] .

In May 2004, the first contingent rotation began ^[12] .

On May 27, 2004, in the area of ​​the city of Al-Mahmoudiya , 30 km south of Baghdad, a car was attacked with Japanese journalists returning from Es Samawa to Baghdad. Two Japanese journalists ( Shinsuke Hashida and Kotaro Ogawa ) were killed, and a driver of the car (Iraqi citizen) was wounded ^[24] .

On July 4, 2004, a demonstration of opponents of the participation of Japanese troops in an operation in Iraq took place in Tokyo ^[25] .

In August 2004, it was decided to supply troops in Iraq with reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles ^[26] .

Japanese citizen Shosei Koda was kidnapped in Iraq in October 2004, and the Khalid bin al-Waleed brigade (linked to Iraqi Al-Qaeda ) on October 20, 2004, demanded that the Japanese government withdraw Japanese troops from Iraq ^[27] within 48 hours. The Japanese government refused and on 29 October 2004 the hostage was killed ^[28] .

On December 9, 2004, the Japanese government approved a decision to extend the stay of the Japanese contingent in Iraq ^[29] .

In early 2005, to protect against mortar attacks, the base of the Japanese contingent was further strengthened and surrounded by a concrete wall ^[30] . Also, in 2005, the contingent received the first R-MAX reconnaissance drones ^[31] .

In August 2005, the Democratic Party of Japan at a parliamentary meeting demanded the withdrawal of Japanese troops from Iraq. ^[32]

In early February 2006, the Japanese government for the first time officially announced its intention to withdraw troops from Iraq (at that time there were 550 troops in the contingent) ^[33] . At the same time, 170 troops of the 1st Airborne Brigade were dispatched during the planned replacement of personnel to serve in Iraq (one of them, a 38-year-old sergeant, in order to avoid being in Iraq, stole the goods in a supermarket in Inzai and was detained) ^[34] .

On June 20, 2006, the engineering equipment of the Japanese contingent began to be exported from Iraq ^[17] .

On July 8, 2006, the first 38 Japanese soldiers left the country in British helicopters ^[17] . Over the next ten days, the rest of the army personnel were withdrawn from Iraq, but about 200 military personnel from the air forces supplying the coalition forces in Iraq remained in Kuwait. ^[35]

On March 20, 2007, a demonstration of opponents of Japan’s participation in the Iraq war was held in central Tokyo ^[36] .

On April 17, 2008, the Nagoya Supreme Court ruled that the operation of the Japanese self-defense air forces in Iraq (during which Japanese C-130 aircraft delivered troops of other states to the combat zone in the Baghdad region) is a violation of article 9 of the Japanese constitution ^[37] .

On July 29, 2008, the US ambassador to Japan called on the Japanese government to continue participating in the military operation in Iraq ^[38] .

In September 2008, the Japanese government announced its intention to cease participation in the war in Iraq and by the end of 2008 to return the military transport aviation unit to Japan, which ensured the delivery of cargo to coalition forces in Iraq ^[39] .

On December 23, 2008, the last self-defense forces left Iraq.

A total of about 5,500 ground troops and 3,500 self-defense air forces participated in the operation in Iraq ^[40] .

The cost of maintaining the military contingent in Iraq amounted to 73 billion yen ^[41] .

During the operation, aggressive actions took place against the contingent: ^[40]

• On January 26, 2004, in the city of Ramadi , an attack was made on a truck carrying goods for the Japanese contingent in Es Samava, and a truck driver (a citizen of Jordan) was killed by attackers ^[42] .
• On February 12, 2004, the first attack on Japanese troops occurred ^[43] - two mortar mines exploded near a Japanese post in Es Samawa. There were no casualties among the contingent personnel ^[44]
• in March 2004, an attack was made on a truck transporting goods from Kuwait for the Japanese contingent to Es Samava, and a truck driver (an Iraqi citizen) was killed by attackers. ^[45]
• On October 25, 2004, a 107-mm rocket was launched at the Japanese base in Es Samava, which fell into the base but did not explode. During the inspection, it was found that the rocket did not have a fuse ^[46] .
• On May 12, 2005, three shells were fired on the basis of the Japanese contingent ^[47]
• On June 15, 2005, Japanese vehicles were stoned ^[40]
• On June 23, 2005, several kilometers from Es Samava, an explosion occurred on the side of the road while driving a Japanese convoy ^[40] , one of the four vehicles was damaged, but there were no casualties among the Japanese troops. Later, when inspecting the scene of the incident, Australian soldiers found a second mine, which was laid on the same section of the road, but did not explode ^[18] .
• On July 5, 2005 ^[40] five missiles were fired towards the Japanese base in Es Samava, one of which exploded on the territory of the base, four others behind its perimeter ^[48] .

There were no casualties among Japanese soldiers killed or wounded during the entire period of operations in Iraq ^[49] , but one soldier was injured (a self-defense air force officer Yorimasa Ikeda was shot down by a bus carrying a US soldier and hospitalized, and returned to Japan after treatment was completed) ^{[ 50]} .

Immediately after returning to Japan, 8 military personnel participating in the operation (7 military self-defense forces and 1 self-defense air force) committed suicide ^[51] . In total, up to May 2015, 29 military personnel participating in the operation committed suicide (21 military personnel of the ground self-defense forces and 8 military personnel of the air defense self-defense forces) ^[52] .

• Colonel V. Vadimov. Deployment of the Japanese military contingent in Iraq // Foreign Military Review , No. 7 (688), 2004. pp. 29-34