Koshiro Tanaka

Koshiro Tanaka (田中光四郎; born 1940) is a Japanese martial artist and veteran of the Soviet–Afghan war. Tanaka left an office-job to confront his possible fear of death. He travelled to Peshawar then to the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and after joining Jamiat-e Islami, took up arms against the Soviet and Afghan government armies.^[1][2]

Koshiro Tanaka was born in 1940 in Tagawa (Fukuoka Prefecture).^[3] He studied karate from childhood, and then judo, aikido and kendo. As an adult, Tanaka embarked on a career as a businessman, but gradually came to the idea that the business of his life was martial arts. He graduated from Kanagawa University Faculty of Law and Economics.^[3] He decided the best “test site” for his spirit and body would be civil war-torn Afghanistan.

In 1985, while sitting in his office at Tokyo's Shinjuku district he talked of preparations to go to Afghanistan. He would finance himself. He traveled to Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province with 10 thousand dollars to distribute to the mujahideen. He raised the money from his company. Peshawar was the seat of the Afghanistan resistance movement and seven different Muslim guerrilla parties were headquartered there. Peshawar was then home to more than 3 million Afghan refugees. Tanaka joined Jamiat-e Islam which was the second largest mujahideen group in the country, headed by Burhanuddin Rabbani. As he prepared to depart to Afghanistan, his wife Takiko stood beside him and showed support but wanted him to stay. She admitted she didn't understand her husband's attraction to the mujahideen.^[4]

The mujahideen, he said, "need help, any kind of help. They need weapons, bread, food, anything". When Koshiro Tanaka arrived in Afghanistan, he exchanged his black uniform suit for a salwar kameez. He had no battlefield experience but nonetheless, he began to teach the mujahideen hand-to-hand combat. In February 1985, he took part in a battle against the Soviet and Afghan armies. Many journalists around the world reported on the so-called "Afghan samurai".

The Japanese government disapproved of his activities.^[5] The Japanese Embassy in Islamabad officially warned Tanaka about the inappropriateness of involvement in the Afghan conflict. Tanaka ignored this warning and began to train the Dushmans of the second largest group headed by Rabbani. He eventually viewed himself as a martyr for Japan, which had an Island dispute with the Soviet Union.

Tanaka was strongly against the government and Constitution for denying Japanese people the chance to fight the Russians off the Kuril Islands to which Japan had historical ties to. The islands were surrendered to the Soviets following WWII.^[4]

He later became the managing director of the Japan Freedom Afghanistan Association, the secretary general of the International Refugee Relief Committee, and succeeded the second Soke of Fuji Fluid Art in 1991, serving until 2007. In 2008, he launched his own school, "Hiko School".^[4]

Tanaka wrote an autobiography based on his experience fighting Soviet and pro-communist Afghan troops in "Soviet Soldiers in a Gun Sight, My Battle in Afghanistan".^[5][6]