9-11 All Over Again?

As Koizumi's snap election date--September 11--nears, will Al-Qaeda use this as an opportunity to bend Japanese politics to its will?  Mainichi Daily News reports that a popular weekly has an article about this very subject.  Japan doesn't have a large Muslim population like Spain or England, and has done nothing in Iraq but good for the people there, but that's no guarantee of safety.

"Still, if they're going to do it, the most likely time for an attack will be during the election. When terrorists attacked Madrid, it came three days before a general election. The result was that the ruling party lost and Spanish troops were withdrawn from Iraq. If there was a terrorist attack on Japan at this time, it could deal an enormous blow to the government that has sent Japanese troops to Iraq," Kamiura says.

Terrorists pick politically sensitive times for their attacks, the men's weekly says, pointing out that the train explosion terrorists caused in Madrid in March 2004 occurred around election time and that the July terrorist bombings in London happened while Britain was hosting the G-8 Summit. Shigeharu Aoyama, head of Japan's Independent Institute for Comprehensive Research and a former Kyodo News hack, points out that Japan is definitely a target, based on what he heard from a confessed terrorist he interviewed in Iraq in late 2003.

"He told me and my friends that if a single Japanese Self-Defense Force member set foot in Iraq, there would be terrorism in Tokyo. He said that the Arab world knows Tokyo well and that they were preparing to carry out a terrorist attack," Aoyama tells Shukan Taishu. "When I countered that the SDF would not be in Iraq to fight, he was furious and said that any friend of the United States was an enemy of his. He said that if Japan was helping the Americans get Iraq back on track, that made Japan an enemy."

The sheer symbolism of the date alone, plus the temptation to prise Japanese support from America may be too much to overcome.   The DPJ, the party challenging Koizumi's control, has campaigned on a platform of removing Japanese Self-Defense forces from Iraq. 

This article also suggests that attacks are possible in such a rich, soft target as Japan.

"Japan's low crime rate and social mores have kept Japanese investigators from developing the skills and attitudes that law enforcement agencies in other parts of the world have acquired through years of hard experiences.

"Compounding this is the fact that Japanese intelligence has little or no experience conducting operations inside Japan itself."

I'm hopeful that the close tabs the Japanese keep on us foreigners (a source of complaint for many gaijin) will make it difficult for terrorist attacks.  But then again, there have been terrorist groups like the now almost-forgotten Red Army which worked closely with Palestinian terrorist organizations.   Judging by a lot of the fashionable anti-American, Bush=Hitler rhetoric I hear, it's not inconceivable that a few fringoids could get together to give it a second go. 

I sincerely doubt that will or an attack by Al-Qaeda operatives will happen.  There was just too little time between Koizumi's decision and now.  But just in case, let us hope the steps the authorities are taking will be enough to deter anybody crazy enough to blow himself up--or worse--wind up in a Japanese prison.

Comments

[Cliff]

The fact that Japanese forces in Iraq are fully devoted to non-military activity and are helping a long suffering people is a concept that seems to be completely lost on some -- both terrorists and their sympathizers alike.

I certainly hope Japan does not become the target written of, not only because of injury or loss of life, but the absurd notion that helping people is a bad thing and should be abandoned because some totalitarian thugs have demanded it.

-- Cliff