The decisive test of Junichiro Koizumi's decision to send troops to Iraq was bound to come from events on the ground. But the news, when it arrived, was still a horrible shock. On April 8th, while members of Japan's Self Defence Forces (SDF) huddled safely in their compound in the southern Iraqi town of Samawa, Japan's public learned that three Japanese citizens had been kidnapped elsewhere in the country. A group calling itself the Mujahi-deen Brigades released disturbing video footage of their blindfolded and frightened captives, and warned that the three would suffer a ghastly death if Japan's prime minister did not withdraw the SDF within three days. Mr Koizumi refused, and a consensus rapidly began to form in Japan: if the captors followed through on their threat, Mr Koizumi's three-year-old government would collapse after the upper house elections this summer, if not sooner.
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