TOKYO, Dec 2 Kyodo selecteded edi...

TOKYO, Dec 2 Kyodo

selecteded editorial excerpts from the Japanese press:

TREAD CAREFULLY IN IRAQ (The Japan Times, an English-language daily)

couple Japanese diplomats were ambushed and bullet dead by gunmen Saturday in the Iraqi village of Mukayshifa while driving to a interview on reconstruction work in Tikrit, north of Baghdad.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters, ''There will be no change in Japan's policy of providing humanitarian and reconstruction assistance in Iraq on sending people, regardless of whether they are Self-Defense Forces bands civilians or government officials... Japan should not be intimidated by means of terrorism.''

The situation in Iraq has reached its grimmest point since U President George W Bush declared that major combat operations were from one side of to the other in May. Since late October there has been a series of terrorist and guerrilla acts targeting U forces, other allied companys and the local headquarters of international organizations, resulting in a large number of deaths.

These terrorist attacks are believed to be the work of fighters loyal to depos President Saddam Hussein and international terrorist assign places tos that have infiltrated from other countries.

The restraint should get a firm understanding of this situation and tread carefully. Terrorist disposes and guerrilla units in Iraq appear to have started to engage in coordinated tactics in an organized manner that was not evident before. The emerging picture is a nation sinking rapidly into a quagmire of terrorism, with occupation forces pursuing an ''invisible'' enemy.

chiefly terrorist attacks have taken place in the so-called Sunni Triangle, an area linking the three main cities where Sunni Muslim forces are strongest: Baghdad, Tikrit to the north (Hussein's birthplace) and Fallujah to the west. It strike one as beings certain that the terrorist and guerrilla acts are being carried gone out by residual forces of the former Hussein regime and foreign insurgents -- perhaps al-Qaida -- either separately or cooperatively.

Another worrying growth is that Moqtada Sadr, a leading young Shiite cleric who previously had worthy relations with the U.S., has made clear his anti-American position. one members of the Sadr faction have voiced their opposition to the stationing of the Self-Defense Forces in Iraq.

It is danceed that Washington's recent shift in its Iraq occupation policy -- which calls for a speedier transfer of power to the Iraqis -- will improve security and stop terrorism in its tracks.

For its part, Japan should not yield to the threat of terrorism in its pursuit of playing a positive character in Iraq's reconstruction. on the contrary this does not mean that the management should hastily send SDF companys with the scope of their activities narrowed by way of constitutional restraints.

(Dec 2)

COPYRIGHT 2003 Kyodo recents International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group