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Posted on 04/08/2004 1:08:19 PM PDT by areafiftyone
SAMAWA, Iraq, April 8 (Reuters) - Five blasts echoed across Samawa in southern Iraq on Thursday but police said there were no immediate reports of any casualties or damage in the town, where Japanese soldiers are based.
Police said they suspected a rocket or mortar attack.
It was the second night in a row that blasts had been reported in the town as Iraq descended into bloody chaos not seen since Saddam Hussein's fall a year ago.
Japan vowed earlier on Thursday to make no hasty decisions about its troop deployment in Iraq, while U.S.-led forces fought fierce battles against Sunni and Shi'ite Muslim rebels and a spate of kidnappings hit foreigners.
"It appears that terrorists are trying to create confusion," Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters. "They are trying to get the Japanese troops to withdraw from Iraq soon."
Japan, one of Washington's closest allies, has sent some 550 ground troops to Samawa on a non-combat mission to help rebuild Iraq.
It is the riskiest deployment of Japanese troops since World War Two, and critics have said it violates Japan's pacifist constitution.
No Japanese soldier has fired a shot in action or been killed in combat since 1945, and casualties could affect support for Koizumi's ruling coalition, which faces an election for parliament's upper house in July.
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