US imposes alcohol ban and monthlong curfew on Okinawa troops after marine held over woman’s murder

New Delhi: The US military has halted routine operations on Japan’s Okinawa island for 48 hours and barred all personnel from drinking, on or off base, after a marine was accused of killing a local woman at a hotel in Naha. A monthlong midnight curfew will follow, even as Tokyo and the prefectural government press Washington to explain how it will prevent a repeat of a crime that has revived old resentments over the American military presence on the island.

The measures were announced late on Tuesday in a statement posted on X by Lieutenant General Benjamin Watson, the commander of the III Marine Expeditionary Force and the most senior US military officer on the island. He described the 48-hour halt, which began on Wednesday, as an “operational pause” during which commanders will train troops on standards, discipline and their responsibilities as members of the Okinawan community.

Off-base liberty is suspended for the duration of the pause. From Friday, October 9, a 30-day “period of reflection” will require every service member to be back in barracks or at an off-base residence between midnight and 5am.

Okinawa Prefectural Police have accused Lance Corporal Devin Jacob Ballard, 20, of killing Anna Yagi, a 39-year-old resident of Naha, at a hotel in the city’s Wakasa district in the early hours of Saturday, October 3. Police say Yagi died of asphyxiation after Ballard allegedly pressed on her neck, and that he also took her wallet and backpack.

Hotel staff found Yagi unconscious in her room after she failed to check out, according to Reuters. Ballard denies the allegations.

Ballard is a combat engineer from Ohio, attached to Marine Wing Support Squadron 172 and based at Futenma. The Marine Corps says he enlisted on August 8, 2024 and was promoted on October 1, 2025. His case was referred to the Naha Public Prosecutors Office on Monday, October 5, and his service record lists him as being in the hands of foreign authorities.

The killing has triggered protests in Naha and Tokyo, including a demonstration outside the prime minister’s office on Monday. As RNA Media had reported, the Japanese prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, has called the crime brutal and heinous, and was due to meet the governor of Okinawa, Genta Koja, later on Wednesday.

Koja first met the defence minister, Shinjiro Koizumi, in Tokyo, and told him the case had caused deep anxiety among residents. He said the prefecture had demanded preventive steps after every earlier incident, and that this one showed discipline and human rights education within the US forces were not working at all. Koizumi replied that he would take up discussions with Washington on effective measures.

On Monday, Koja had already pressed for revisions to the status of forces agreement in a meeting with Watson and the US consul general, Andrew Ou. The US ambassador to Japan, George Glass, said he was discussing with commanders how to hold American personnel to the highest standards of discipline. The US Army also skipped a traditional tug-of-war ceremony on the island in the wake of the case.

Okinawa, which the US administered from the end of the Second World War until 1972, hosts most of the roughly 54,000 American military personnel in Japan. It also houses the bulk of the country’s 18,000 marines, and, although it accounts for less than 1 per cent of Japan’s land area, roughly 70 per cent of the facilities used exclusively by US forces in the country are located there.

The latest case follows a long and painful sequence. The 1995 rape of a 12-year-old girl by three American servicemen set off mass demonstrations, and in 2016 the arrest of Kenneth Shinzato, a former marine working as a base contractor, over the death of a 20-year-old woman led to a similar curfew and drinking ban. Shinzato was later sentenced to life imprisonment, and in 2017 US Forces Japan banned alcohol for all personnel after a drunken marine killed a 61-year-old local driver in a road collision.

Last year, a Japanese court jailed a marine for seven years for choking and attempting to rape a woman in her 20s. The status of forces agreement, which governs the legal position of US personnel in Japan, was signed in 1960 and has never been amended, which explains why calls for its revision resurface after every serious incident.

The strategic stakes remain high. Okinawa lies close to Taiwan and China, and many residents, despite their objections to crime, noise and pollution linked to the bases, acknowledge the value of the American presence given the growing Chinese military threat. US officials have warned that repeated incidents could erode the local goodwill on which security arrangements in East Asia depend.