|
Tokyo terrorized by Sept.11 threat
September 7, 2005. Maininchi News
Election day this Sunday is the prime time for Al Qaeda to carry out a terrorist attack on Tokyo, experts tell Shukan Taishu.
Though some experts say the likelihood of Islamic terrorists striking Japan is low, it's not impossible.
"Countries where there's a high likelihood of a terrorist attack meet two conditions -- a large Islamic population base that feels alienated and will offer clandestine support for terrorists' preparations, and a weak defense.
I don't think Japan meets either condition.
Of course, there is the Iraq problem, with our country following the United States, which means that the possibility (of a terror attack) cannot be ruled out," Yuji Ono of the Middle East Research Institute of Japan tells Shukan Taishu.
Military analyst Motoaki Kamiura agrees the possibility of a terror attack on Japan is limited.
"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 The result was that the ruling party lost and Spanish troops were withdrawn from Iraq.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."
Police in Japan are certainly not taking the threat of terrorism lightly, with a cop force of 13,000 hitting the streets to protect sensitive spots vulnerable to terror attacks during the campaign.
"The bombings in London and Madrid have contributed to the irregular upgrading of security," a reporter on the police beat says. "The Metropolitan Police Department is aware that the likelihood of an attack is greater the closer we get to election day and is increasing security accordingly. Don't forget, the election is timed for Sept. 11, the exact same day of the terror attacks on New York."
A political beat reporter adds that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has already acted to curb terrorists with ideas of ruining his election.
"It wasn't given a great deal of media coverage, but Koizumi came home from the summit and immediately ordered the government take every possible safety step," the reporter tells Shukan Taishu. "There are about 20 different facilities that have been marked down for extra security. I suppose the reason things were kept quiet was to avoid sending people into a panic." (By Ryann Connell)
|