Japan may send ground troops to Iraq in Feb

Japan, one of the closest United States allies in Asia, has yet to decide when to send troops to Iraq, with voters growing increasingly nervous about the dangers involved.

Tokyo inched closer to such a dispatch on Friday, though, when Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba said a recent fact-finding mission had reported that the southern part of the country was relatively stable.

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According to a draft plan quoted by Kyodo, an advance unit of 10 members of Japan's air Self-Defence Forces would be sent to Kuwait and Iraq by the end of December, followed by C-130 cargo planes in mid-January. The number of air personnel would eventually total 150, the plan said.