A car bomb attack on barracks near the northern city of Mosul early Tuesday wounded 31 American soldiers, mainly with flying debris and glass, the military said. The attack came less than a day after resistance fighters shot and killed a soldier from the Army's 101st Airborne Division as he guarded a gas station in Mosul. "Four Iraqi males traveling in vehicles stopped approximately 50 meters (yards) from a gas station in Mosul and opened fire on coalition soldiers guarding the station," Kimmitt said of the attack Monday. "One coalition soldier died of gunshot wounds in that attack." In Tokyo, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Cabinet approved a plan Tuesday to send soldiers to help in the reconstruction of Iraq in the biggest deployment of Japanese troops overseas since World War II. According to media reports, a total of 1,000 troops, including 600 ground forces, will be sent to southeastern Iraq to restore water services, offer medical and other humanitarian assistance and help rebuild schools and other infrastructure. Opposition leaders warn the deployment could draw the troops into actual fighting and violate Japan's postwar pacifist constitution. Also Tuesday, a car drove up to the gate of the base of the 3rd Brigade of 101 Airborne division in the town of Talafar, 30 miles west of Mosul, spokesman Maj. Trey Cate said. Guards opened fire on the vehicle and it blew up, he said. A total of 31 soldiers were wounded, mostly by debris and flying glass. None of the injuries were lift-threatening, Cate said. On Monday, three U.S. soldiers in Mosul were wounded when a bomb exploded as their patrol passed, a U.S. military spokesperson said on condition of anonymity. Three other U.S. soldiers were killed and one injured on Monday when two Stryker infantry carrier vehicles were riding in rolled into a canal near Duluiyah, 30 miles north of Baghdad. Hostile fire was not involved. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Iraqi man sits under guard as his home is searched in Khadasiya, a northern suburb of Tikrit, Iraq, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2003. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)