Bomb explodes at shop run by ex-Japan-Iraq friendship ass'n head

0 Comments | Asian Political News, August 1, 2005

SAMAWAH, Iraq, July 25 Kyodo

A bomb exploded Sunday night at a jewelry shop run by a former director of the Japan-Iraq friendship association in Samawah, southern Iraq, injuring two people and destroying the shop, local police said Monday.

Several other shops near the jewelry shop in central Samawah were damaged, the police said.

The blast occurred two days after Anmar Mohssin decided to disband his association due to a bomb threat from Iraqis who are against the stationing of Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force troops in Samawah for the Iraqi reconstruction mission.

On Friday, protesters took to the streets in the southern Iraqi city, calling for actions to improve the city's utility situations in view of electricity shortage.

Some of the demonstrators threatened to bomb the shop of the friendship association head and kill him unless he stopped associating with the Japanese.

Appearing on a local TV program Saturday, Anmar dismissed the bomb threat as a ''childish'' action by ''lower class'' people.

The local police suspect that some of the demonstrators were responsible for the blast.

The demonstrators included supporters of Shiite cleric Mocqtada al-Sadr, who repeatedly have condemned the Japanese Self-Defense Forces as an ''occupying force'' being deployed in Iraq at the request of the U.S. military.

Anmar headed the Japan-Iraq friendship association before the GSDF troops began to be stationed in Samawah in January 2004.