A Japanese government airplane arrived at a Kuwaiti air base yesterday, carrying 104 Japanese air force personnel on a controversial mission to support relief and reconstruction efforts in southern Iraq.
The pilots, maintenance personnel and administrative staff, wearing fatigues and light green caps, arrived at Abdullah Al Mubarak airbase about 8am local time.
They boarded three buses and were to be driven to another Kuwait airbase, Ali Al Salem, where they will be based for three months to assist with transporting relief supplies and reconstruction equipment to Iraq.
An advance team of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces arrived in Kuwait last week and on Monday moved to Samawah in southern Iraq.
Japan is committing 1,000 military personnel to the operation, which will put its troops in a conflict zone for the first time since World War II.
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