Fri, May 13, 2005 page5

• Japanese hostage's fate probed

  DEAD OR ALIVE? A Japanese contractor allegedly working for a British security firm may have lived through an ambush in iraq, but he's likely to have been fatally injured

  • AP
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  A Japanese security worker taken hostage in Iraq is believed to be still alive, the government said, but the security firm he works for said it fears he may have died of wounds suffered in the ambush that led to his capture.

  The US military has collected several bodies from the ambush site in Hit, west of Baghdad, but the missing Japanese citizen, Akihito Saito, 44, was apparently not among them, a Foreign Ministry official said.

  The Ansar al-Sunnah Army claimed on its Web site Monday that it ambushed a group of five foreign contractors, killing four of them and that the fifth one -- Saito -- was seriously injured and taken hostage.

  Late Wednesday, international security firm Hart GMSSCO, which has employed Saito as a consultant at the company's Baghdad office, said an eyewitness reported that the contractor suffered fatal wounds in Sunday's ambush. The firm said in a statement on its Web site that it has not given up hope that Saito may still be alive. "However an eyewitness report indicates that wounds sustained at the time of the incident may have proved fatal," it said.

  Hart's London-based press office also described details of what appeared to be a well-orchestrated ambush on the convoy Saito was helping escort west of Baghdad.

  "The ambush was complex and well planned, incorporating the use of multiple improvised explosive devices, rocket propelled grenades, machine gun fire and small arms fire," the statement said.

  Japan's government says the kidnapping -- which it still has not definitively confirmed -- would not affect the deployment of its 550 troops in southern Iraq on a humanitarian, non-combat mission. The kidnappers are not known to have made any demands for a withdrawal. But Tokyo has called on the US military, Iraq, Jordan and Syria for help in winning Saito's release.

  "We are determined to do our best to rescue him as soon as possible, if his kidnapping is true," Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told a parliamentary session on Wednesday.

  Saito's family has backed the government's decision not to withdraw troops, but his younger brother Hironobu expressed concern on Wednesday about his health condition.

  "It sounds like he is injured, but we have no idea how serious his conditions are and whether he is getting any treatment," Hironobu Saito told reporters in Chiba, outside of Tokyo.

  About 500 Japanese soldiers are stationed in the southern Iraqi city of Samawah purifying water, rebuilding infrastructure and offering medical aid. The mission, combined with air and naval support troops, is Japan's largest overseas mission since World War II.

  Last year, when five Japanese were taken hostage in Iraq and later released, many Japanese criticized them for recklessly entering Iraq and putting their government into a difficult position. In October, when militants beheaded a Japanese backpacker in Iraq, many here blamed the victim for his own death.

  However, those incidents also fueled opposition to the government's troop dispatch. Many Japanese have criticized the deployment as a violation of Japan's pacifist constitution and for making Japan a target for terrorism.

  Saito's apparent abduction has renewed some of those concerns.

  Saito was being depicted in the Japanese media as something of a soldier of fortune. After reportedly serving two years with the Japanese Self Defense Forces as a paratrooper, he worked in the French Foreign Legion for more than 20 years before going to Iraq in December.

  The Kyodo News agency said Saito may have been working as a security officer at a US facility.

  Hironobu Saito said his brother had not contacted the family for about a decade. Even when they had contact with him, family members did not inquire about his activities. His father was unaware of his involvement in the Legion.

  "No one in the family knew that he was in Iraq," Hironobu Saito told reporters late Tuesday.

  The Ansar al-Sunnah Army is believed to be a breakaway faction of Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish-led group with links to al-Qaeda. It has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks in Iraq.
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