Tokyo eyes MI6-style overseas spy agency

Japan is looking into creating an overseas intelligence agency possibly modeled on Britain's MI6 spy service, ruling party lawmakers have said, 70 years after Allied victors dismantled Japan's fearsome military intelligence apparatus following World War II.

A new foreign intelligence agency would be an integral part of a security framework Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is building as he seeks to loosen the postwar pacifist Constitution's limits on the military's ability to operate overseas.

The idea that Japan's fragmented intelligence community needs a makeover has also gained momentum since the killing of two Japanese captives by Islamic State extremists in Syria earlier this year showed how much Tokyo relied on other countries for information.