Alarmed by threats purportedly made by the al-Qaeda terrorist network to attack US allies, the Japanese government has issued an alert for citizens traveling or living abroad.
Monday's alert was the latest in a series of travel advisories issued by the Foreign Ministry. A previous alert was issued Oct. 28 after a videotape purportedly by Osama bin Laden threatened suicide attacks on the US and the countries supporting the American occupation of Iraq, including Japan, Britain, Spain, Australia, Poland and Italy.
Japan was among the first to back the US-led war against Iraq, and is considering a dispatch of troops to help with reconstruction. But the government has largely waffled on such plans fearing an escalation of violence in the region.
The ministry's latest alert was issued after two London-based Arabic-language newspapers received separate statements over the weekend threatening car bomb attacks against the US, Britain, Italy, Australia and Japan.
In a travel advisory posted on the Foreign Ministry Web site Monday, the ministry urged Japanese tourists and residents to use "utmost caution."
"In light of the statement purportedly by al-Qaeda threatening terror attacks, please obtain the latest information, stay away from facilities that are likely to become terror targets, use caution in crowded places and pay attention to what's around you to avoid possible terror attacks or any other trouble," it said.
National Public Safety Commission chief Kiyoko Ono told reporters yesterday that Japanese authorities were still trying to verify and gauge the risk level of the latest terror threats.
"So far, we have not found any signs [of impending attacks]," Ono said, adding that Japanese police will continue the tightened security measures adopted after the September 2001 attacks in the US.
The threats over the weekend in the daily al-Quds Al-Arabi and weekly al-Majallah came after Tokyo said last week it would delay -- but not abandon -- long-discussed plans to send peacekeepers because of deteriorating security in southern Iraq. Tokyo has also offered US$1.5 billion in grants for next year and US$3.5 billion in loans for the following three years for the reconstruction effort.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said yesterday the government would carefully consider the possibility and timing of a dispatch after receiving word from a fact-finding mission that left for Iraq on Saturday to assess security there, Kyodo News reported.
A day earlier, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi condemned the terrorist threats saying Japan would not "give in" to them.
According to al-Majallah, an alleged al-Qaeda operative identified as Abu Mohamed al-Ablaj in an e-mail warned Tokyo against sending troops to Iraq to help with postwar reconstruction.
The statements claimed responsibility for the attack that killed 23 people in Turkey on Saturday and the Nov. 12 car bombing outside the Italian police headquarters in Iraq that claimed more than 30 lives. They also contained a warning to US President George W. Bush and his allies.
PARLIAMENT CHAOS: Police forcibly removed Brazilian Deputy Glauber Braga after he called the legislation part of a ‘coup offensive’ and occupied the speaker’s chair Brazil’s lower house of Congress early yesterday approved a bill that could slash former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s prison sentence for plotting a coup, after efforts by a lawmaker to disrupt the proceedings sparked chaos in parliament. Bolsonaro has been serving a 27-year term since last month after his conviction for a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 election. Lawmakers had been discussing a bill that would significantly reduce sentences for several crimes, including attempting a coup d’etat — opening up the prospect that Bolsonaro, 70, could have his sentence cut to
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
‘UNWAVERING ALLIANCE’: The US Department of State said that China’s actions during military drills with Russia were not conducive to regional peace and stability The US on Tuesday criticized China over alleged radar deployments against Japanese military aircraft during a training exercise last week, while Tokyo and Seoul yesterday scrambled jets after Chinese and Russian military aircraft conducted joint patrols near the two countries. The incidents came after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi triggered a dispute with Beijing last month with her remarks on how Tokyo might react to a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan. “China’s actions are not conducive to regional peace and stability,” a US Department of State spokesperson said late on Tuesday, referring to the radar incident. “The US-Japan alliance is stronger and more
FALLEN: The nine soldiers who were killed while carrying out combat and engineering tasks in Russia were given the title of Hero of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended a welcoming ceremony for an army engineering unit that had returned home after carrying out duties in Russia, North Korean state media KCNA reported on Saturday. In a speech carried by KCNA, Kim praised officers and soldiers of the 528th Regiment of Engineers of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) for “heroic” conduct and “mass heroism” in fulfilling orders issued by the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea during a 120-day overseas deployment. Video footage released by North Korea showed uniformed soldiers disembarking from an aircraft, Kim hugging a soldier seated in a wheelchair, and soldiers and officials
RSS