Japan may send an advance team of ground troops to Iraq as early as January 16, a leading Japanese daily said on Monday, for what is likely to become Japan's biggest and most dangerous military mission since World War Two.
Quoting government sources, the Yomiuri Shimbun said Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba is expected to issue an order on Friday to dispatch around 30 army personnel to Samawah, the city in southern Iraq where Japan's troops will be based.
The team, which will spend several days in Kuwait to acclimatise, will study security conditions in Samawah and make other preparations for the arrival of a larger force later in January.
Public opinion remains deeply divided over the government's decision to send the military to Iraq, but Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi reiterated that he has no intention to change the dispatch plans.
"It may well be confusing work accompanied by danger," Koizumi told a news conference.
"But for the sake of Iraq's reconstruction, we will go," he said, adding that a stable Iraq would be to the benefit of the region and the world.