Author:
Publication: Reuters
Date: December 30, 2005
URL: http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2005-12-30T031241Z_01_KNE011528_RTRUKOC_0_US-JAPAN-SECURITY-EXTREMISTS.xml&archived=False
A member of an Islamist extremist group banned
in Pakistan entered Japan two years ago to try to establish a foothold in
the country, a Japanese newspaper said on Friday.
Japanese police had warned this month that
Islamist extremists may tempt Muslim communities in Japan to turn radical
and attack Japan, whose government has been a staunch backer of the U.S.-led
war on Iraq.
In a report that underscores such concerns,
police learned from an informant that a member of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan
(SSP), a Sunni extremist group outlawed in Pakistan, had entered Japan to
start an SSP branch, the Sankei newspaper said.
After checking immigration records, police
found that a Pakistani man in his 30s had entered Japan in 2003 with a visa
for religious activities and that he had told others while worshipping that
he came to Japan to establish an SSP offshoot, the newspaper said.
Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan is one of seven militant
groups that were outlawed by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf after the
September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
"We will step up efforts to grasp the
actual conditions of the Islamic community in Japan that could be used improperly
by terrorists," the paper quoted a police source as saying.
Sankei said the man was detected both entering
and leaving Japan that year, but did not make clear his current whereabouts.
A spokesman for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police
Department said he had no information on the case and declined to comment.
The man had been seen at mosques near Tokyo
and also had contact at train stations with a 27-year-old Pakistani in the
trading business who had lived in Yokohama near Tokyo and a 40-year-old Pakistani
and former employee of a Tokyo bookbinding firm, Sankei said.
Tokyo police have arrested the 40-year-old
Pakistani on suspicion of violating immigration laws, and are continuing surveillance
activities to track down the SSP network in Japan, the newspaper said.
Japan, which has sent some 550 ground troops
to Iraq on a reconstruction mission, has been on guard against possible attacks
since being mentioned by members of Islamist militant group al Qaeda as a
possible target.
Prior to Japan's deployment of troops to Samawa
in southern Iraq, al Qaeda had reportedly threatened to "strike in the
heart of Tokyo" if Japan sent troops to Iraq. Japan dispatched its main
contingent of troops to Iraq in February 2004.
In May 2004, Japanese police arrested several
foreigners in a probe into the activities of Lionel Dumont, a French national
with links to al Qaeda who entered Japan on a false passport in 2002 and stayed
for over a year.
There is no official data on the number of
Muslims in Japan, but police sources have put the number around 90,000. They
are mainly from Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Iran and Turkey, the sources said.
