Japan pledges $15.5M in 'counter-terrorism' aid

Japan has announced a $15.5 million aid “counter-terrorism” package in the Middle East and Africa.

The amount, which was first reported in Japanese newspapers on Sunday, doubles the $7.5 million in assistance that Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida pledged during a visit to Brussels in January and comes as Tokyo tries to demonstrate its resolve despite the murder of two citizens by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.

Kishida said in a statement on Tuesday that the aid was part of Japan's effort to support "counter-terrorism capacity building assistance in the Middle East/Africa," including border control, investigation and development of legal systems.

Vice foreign minister Yasuhide Nakayama will give details on the aid when he attends a global conference later this week in Washington, ministry officials said.

The announcement comes weeks after journalist Kenji Goto, a Japanese journalist who was seeking the release of Haruna Yukawa, who was captured in Aleppo, were beheaded by members of ISIL, a group whose fighters control tracts of Syria and Iraq.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was criticized over the timing of an earlier $200 million Japanese pledge of “non-military aid” and the kidnappings started a debate in Japan about the nation’s global role, something Abe has made no secret of wanting to expand. Japan relies on the Middle East for most of the crude oil it needs to run the world’s third-largest economy.

Abe announced the initial aid pledge in January, saying Japan would "help curb the threat" of ISIL and give the money "for those countries contending with" the fighters.

Days later a video emerged demanding $200 million the same sum as a ransom for the life of the two Japanese hostages.

ISIL fighters later changed their demand to the release of a death row inmate from a Jordanian prison.

Tokyo pressed Jordan for its help, but ISIL eventually announced the killing of the pair as well as a Jordanian airman. Jordan responded by executing two al-Qaeda associated prisoners.

Japan, which had not directly threatened by the militants until the recent killings of the two hostages, is still in shock and is reviewing its public safety measures, eyeing the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Al Jazeera with wire services