Japan is launching a new diplomatic unit this week to collect and analyze information on international terrorism, the government said yesterday, in light of attacks on its citizens overseas and global assaults including those last month in Paris.
The beheading of two Japanese citizens earlier this year claimed by the Islamic State and the deaths of 10 others in a hostage crisis in Algeria in 2013 have highlighted the vulnerability of Japanese people abroad.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that the new unit, to be established under the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is to focus on gathering and analyzing information.
Photo: Kyodo News via AP
“We will take full measures to prevent terrorism and to protect Japanese nationals from harm,” Suga told a regular news conference.
The unit, due to start operating today, is to have about 20 personnel in Tokyo and 20 more based in Japanese diplomatic missions abroad, officials said, and is to concentrate on four geographic areas: Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and north and west Africa.
The government had originally planned to start the unit in April next year, but recent major terrorist attacks, such as those in Paris on Nov. 13, prompted the start date to be brought forward, a Japanese diplomat said.
Until the past few years, Japan had been virtually unaffected by international terrorism, although there have been several incidents in the past, including the hijacking of a Japan Airlines airplane in the 1970s by a domestic group allied with a Palestinian faction in the Middle East.
Suga also expressed Japan’s solidarity with the US shortly after US President Barack Obama gave a televised speech in which he vowed to defeat the Islamic State following last week’s deadly rampage in California, which the US leader described as an act of terrorism.
Suga added that Tokyo is to work closely with the US and other countries “to prevent acts of terrorism.”
Japan has in recent years taken other steps to improve its intelligence-gathering capability, including launching satellites to monitor North Korea, which has carried out nuclear tests and routinely threatens Japan.
The country is also making a point of showing that it is increasing security as it prepares to host the next G7 summit in May next year, as well as the Summer Olympics in 2020.
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