A promise comes true for wounded Iraqi boy

By Eric Talmadge
The Associated Press

STR / AFP/GETTY IMAGES Mohamad Haytham Saleh, 10, of Iraq and his father, Haytham, arrive in Tokyo yesterday. The boy is to be treated for eye damage suffered during a battle in Iraq.

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Most e-mailed articles

Hashida went back for the boy, only to be killed in an ambush.

But his promise stands.

Mohamad Haytham Saleh, 10, arrived today in Tokyo from Amman, Jordan. Following through on arrangements Hashida made before he and his nephew Kotaro Ogawa, also a journalist, were killed in an attack south of Baghdad, a local Rotary Club will sponsor the boy and pay for his medical care.

	Shinsuke Hashida

"I'm grateful to all the Japanese for helping me," Saleh, smiling shyly, told Japanese reporters before boarding the plane. "I'm really excited."

Though he has undergone two operations in Iraq, Saleh cannot see with his left eye, which was pierced by glass in November during fighting in Fallujah.

His story has touched Japan, where he has become a celebrity.

Updates of his situation appear daily on nationwide television. Before leaving Amman, Mohamad and his father, a taxi driver, went on a quick tour of the city with Japanese TV networks in tow. Video of the child mounting a mechanized horse at an arcade and waving goodbye at the airport were among the top stories of the day.

At the same time, the May 27 killing of Hashida and his nephew last Thursday has deepened concerns here over Japan's involvement in Iraq.

Japan has about 500 noncombat troops in southeastern Iraq on a humanitarian mission intended to help improve the local infrastructure and provide badly needed drinking water. The deployment is the biggest and most dangerous conducted by this country's military since World War II, and was made possible by the strong backing of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

Despite Koizumi's repeated claim that it is essential for Japan to keep the troops in Iraq to show support for President Bush, increasing violence — including the killings of Hashida and Ogawa, the taking of five Japanese hostages and bombings near the Japanese base — has made an already dubious public even more skeptical.

Hashida, no stranger to Iraq, was killed while on his fifth trip there.

According to authorities, Hashida, 61, and Ogawa, 33, were attacked while driving about 20 miles south of Baghdad in the city of Mahmoudiya. Details of the ambush remain sketchy, but gunmen are believed to have sprayed the vehicle with bullets before it exploded in flames.

The nephew's body was found about 6 miles from the site of the attack. Japanese media speculated that Ogawa, a freelancer, may have been abducted and later shot dead.

Hashida's interpreter also was killed, while his driver survived a bullet wound in the head.

It was the second fatal incident involving Japanese in Iraq since the U.S. invasion last year. Two diplomats were murdered in an ambush near the northern Iraq city of Tikrit last November.

Hashida's widow, Yukiko, and son, Daisuke, identified his badly burned remains at a U.S. military base in Kuwait on Wednesday. They were to return to Japan after stopping off in Bangkok, where Hashida was based.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

E-mail this article

Print this article

Search archive

More nation & world headlines...