Japanese Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba said on Sunday Tokyo should defy threats from terrorists and stick to its controversial plan to send troops to help rebuild Iraq.

Ishiba's remarks follow recent media reports that al Qaeda warned Japan it would infiltrate deep into Tokyo and attack the capital as soon as Japanese troops set foot on Iraq.

"If we are intimidated and do not dispatch Self-Defense Forces (military), Japan will be seen as a country that backs down if threatened," Ishiba told TV Asahi.

"It is not different in essence from an argument that because North Korea has missiles, we do as we are told by them."

But Ishiba did not say when Japanese troops would be deployed to Iraq.

Japan, one of America's closest allies in Asia, has still to decide when to send non-combat troops to Iraq as voters grow increasingly nervous about the danger of backing the United States.

Ishiba stressed that the resource-poor Japan, which relies heavily on the Middle East for oil, should join other countries in rebuilding Iraq.

"Stability in the region is a matter of life or death for Japan," he said.

Japan had been expected to commit about 150 non-combat troops to Iraq before the end of the year and perhaps as many as 1,200 soldiers and civilians eventually, but the plan was put on hold after a string of recent attacks in Iraq and elsewhere.

Fukushiro Nukaga, policy chief of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said on Sunday Japan would decide what to do after receiving a report from a fact-finding mission sent to Iraq earlier this month.

Most voters opposed the Iraq war and many are wary about sending Japan's troops, known as the Self-Defense Forces (SDF), to Iraq, gripped by a string of suicide bombings.

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