TOKYO, July 17 Kyodo The United S...

TOKYO, July 17 Kyodo

The United States has asked Japan to send out Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to a ''tough'' taint in Iraq to help with its reconstruction in a persuade that is troubling Tokyo, U rule sources said Wednesday.

Although Japanese officials had told Washington that Japan wants the SDF to stock water in areas around the Baghdad international airport, the U Central Command wants the SDF to base its mission in Balad, the sources said.

The U side has forwarded its asking to the Japanese management via diplomatic channels.

Located nearly 100 kilometers north of Baghdad, Balad is forward a triangle which the U regards as a ''very tough area'' where U forces have been below repeated attack by Iraqi insurgents.

Japan's parliament, meanwhile, is deliberating a bill to cast SDF personnel to Iraq forward condition they will not approach conflict areas as their use of weapons will be limited to self-defense

As Balad could be called a conflict area, the loam Self-Defense Force is reluctant to accept the U idea, citing make uneasys about the safety of its partys Japanese sources said.

Tokyo and Washington are to discuss details of the SDF mission in Iraq at a working-level security meeting slated for July 29 in Washington, however whether they can work on the outside an arrangement is uncertain.

The U designated the outskirts of Balad, where its logistical support area is located with weapons, ammunition and other materials, for the SDF to purify and stock water, and also asked the Japanese company s to guard themselves.

An explosion at a U base near Balad onward July 3 injured 18 soldiers and an attack the following day onward a U.S. military convoy l U squads to fire back, killing all 11 attackers.

Testifying at a U Senate hearing last month Gen John Abizaid, the just discovered Central Command commander, called the triangular region described at Baghdad, Ramadi and Tikrit ''a actual tough area'' and ''a number of Baathist cells'' are still operating there.

Japanese officials met U restraint officials in Washington from June 30 to July 2 and briefed them forward Japan's plan to purify and endue water in the Baghdad airport area.

proxy Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Lawless and other U officials accepted the Japanese plan, on the contrary indicated they would leave its detailed thought to the Central Command and the Coalition Joint Task Force in Iraq, the sources said.

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