Japan has put plans to airlift goods to Baghdad's airport on hold after a deadly mortar attack highlighted security concerns for its troops, reports said yesterday.
Japan's 200 air force personnel and three C-130 aircraft stationed in Kuwait were to begin transporting humanitarian goods into Iraq in mid-February using airports in Baghdad, Basra, Mosul and Balad.
But it has put off trips to Baghdad until after an investigation is completed into a mortar attack near Baghdad International Airport that killed one US soldier and wounded another Thursday, the Asahi and Nihon Keizai newspapers reported.
Defense Agency officials could not be reached for comment.
Shigeru Ishiba, director general of the agency, told reporters Friday he would order an inquiry into the incident.
"It could have a major impact" on the activities of Japan's Air Self-Defense Forces, Ishiba said.
The Japanese government's plan for using troops to provide humanitarian assistance in Iraq stipulates that it must be carried out "in areas where combat is not taking place and is not expected to take place."
The first group of 86 members of Japan's main contingent of ground troops is expected to roll into Iraq tomorrow from their base in Kuwait, joining an advance team of 39 troops who entered southern Iraq near Samawa last month.
The dispatch is Japan's first to a country where fighting is ongoing since World War II. All 600 ground troops are expected to be in place by the end of next month.
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Since the war in the Middle East began nearly two weeks ago, the telephone at Ron Hubbard’s bomb shelter company in Texas has not stopped ringing. Foreign and US clients are rushing to buy his bunkers, seeking refuge in case of air raids, nuclear fallout or apocalypse. With the US and Israel pounding Iran, and Tehran retaliating with strikes across the region, Hubbard has seen demand for his product soar, mostly from Gulf nation customers in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. “You can imagine how many people are thinking: ‘I wish I had a bomb shelter,’” Hubbard, 63, said in
STILL IN POWER: US intelligence reports showed that the Iranian regime is not in danger of collapse and retains control of the public, casting doubt on Trump’s exit Nearly every US Senate Democrat on Wednesday signed a letter sent to US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth requesting a “swift investigation” of airstrikes on a girls’ school in Iran that killed scores of children and any other potential US military actions causing civilian harm. Reuters reported on Thursday last week that US military investigators believe it is likely that US forces were responsible for the Feb. 28 strike on the school, as US and Israeli forces launched attacks on Iran. “The results of this school attack are horrific. The majority of those killed in the strikes were girls between the ages
RSS