Japan's PM hails bin Laden's killing as major progress, says serious threats remain

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Monday responded favorably to the announcement by U.S. President Barack Obama that al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden had been killed by an elite U.S. military force.

The Japanese premier heralded the killing of bin Laden, the mastermind behind a number of high-profile terrorist attacks, including the September 11 multiple suicide strikes on the U.S. in 2001, as a remarkable progress, but maintained that terrorist acts by cells affiliated with al-Qaida could retaliate for the killing of their former leader, who they will herald as martyr, and as such serious threats remain.

"The death has been confirmed. But this does not mean that al- Qaida and other terrorist groups have been eradicated," Kan said in an address on Monday evening. "The threat of terrorism is still serious," he added.

U.S. President Barack Obama confirmed the death of bin Laden, 54, the most wanted man in the world, in a public address from the White House late on Sunday, in a military operation conducted by the U.S. forces at a compound near the Pakistani capital Islamabad.

In light of global security tightening measures, including at U. S. military instillations across Japan, the Japanese prime minister instructed government authorities to step up their anti- terrorism efforts.

Japan's Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa said the country's Self-Defense Forces will be on high alert across the nation -- some military experts have said that Japan could be a "soft target " for terrorist attacks.

"We cannot presume what could happen in terms of retaliation, but we want to increase the frequency of patrols at camps and bases," the defense chief said at a news conference earlier this evening.

Kitazawa said that Japan had no prior knowledge of the plan to eliminate bin Laden, but Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, the government's top spokesperson, said that the information was received through diplomatic channels around the same time as Obama made the announcement in Washington.