We have for a long time been arming the SDF and the group in that SDF that we've been working with very closely is the Syrian Arab Coalition," Dorrian added.
A group calling itself the Mujahideen 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.
JAPAN'S Self-Defence Forces (SDF) have long lived a cloistered life.
Yoshihiko Noda, the prime minister (and son of an SDF man), lacks the girls' sex appeal.
Japan's pacifist constitution, written by Americans after the country's defeat, severely curtails what the SDF may do.
The head of the competition jury is one of the chief nuts, Shoichi Watanabe, an elderly professor of exquisite manners and chairman of the Japan Bibliophile Society who has been accused of plagiarism.A second and curious element is that among the 230-odd contestants, it turns out, some 50 were officers of Japan's self-defence forces (SDF).
That was the question facing Junichiro Koizumi this week, as he and his cabinet pondered sending the self-defence forces (SDF) to help rebuild Iraq.
Junichiro Koizumi is counting on this as he updates, yet again, the role of Japan's Self Defence Force (SDF).
But after the September 11th attacks, its Self-Defence Forces (SDF is a euphemism for its armed forces that gets round its pacifist-sounding constitution) have been deployed in much more determined fashion.
More than 500 members of Japan's Self Defence Forces (SDF) have been there for nearly a year, serving in the quiet southern backwater of Samawa (not to be confused with much nastier Samarra), and Mr Koizumi must decide by mid-December whether to extend their stay.
After the outbreak of the Korean War, however, the government, at the suggestion of the Allied occupation forces, established a National Police Reserve, which later became the Self-Defense Forces (SDF; Jieitai).
