A group of several people fired a dozen shots at the Japanese Embassy in Baghdad early Tuesday morning, but nobody was injured, the Foreign Ministry said.
Quoting a report from the embassy, the ministry said that after an Iraqi security guard at the embassy fired back, the shooters escaped in a car.
The incident took place at about 3 a.m. Tuesday local time, the ministry said in a statement.
The bullets hit the wall of the embassy compound, it said.
The incident was reported just as a team of experts from the Ground Self-Defense Force arrived in southern Iraq for a firsthand look at the security situation in Samawah, a potential candidate site for a dispatch of SDF troops.
The team of about 10 GSDF personnel that arrived at a Dutch base in Samawah by helicopter will conduct an investigation, lasting from 10 days to two weeks, focusing on security in southern Iraq, which also includes the city of Nasiriyah.
The team's findings are expected to affect the government's decision to determine the timing of an SDF dispatch, government officials said.
Japan has been seeking to send SDF troops to Iraq to help with the country's reconstruction efforts, probably stationing them in Samawah, which is close to Nasiriyah. Southern Iraq had been considered relatively safer than other parts of the country.
However, the Japanese government gave up its original plans to dispatch SDF troops by the end of the year.