Some 140 troops of the Ground Self-Defense Force arrived at Tokyo's Haneda airport, following the return of 170 personnel on Thursday, a defense agency official said.

The rest of the 600-member mission will return from Kuwait on Tuesday.

Due to its pacifist 1947 constitution, Japan calls its military the "Self-Defense Forces" and said the troops were deployed in a "non-combat zone" in Iraq.

Japan renounced the use of force under the US-imposed constitution, and the deployment to Iraq since January 2004 was the closest Japanese troops had come to harm's way in more than 60 years.

The Japanese troops suffered no casualties and did not even fire their weapons.

The troops relied on Australian, British and Dutch troops to protect them and withdrew just as the southern province of Muthanna became the first province to come under the control of the fledgling Iraqi government.

The Japanese soldiers completed the withdrawal from Iraq on July 17.

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