Terror Plagues Tranquil Holland

The brazen daylight murder of a filmmaker who criticized Islamic fundamentalism has shattered Holland's fabled tranquility.

A wave of attacks on mosques and churches — and a firebombing at a Muslim elementary school — is raising troubling questions about Dutch society's relations with a large and increasingly restive Muslim minority.

Marion Cappendijk can't understand the outburst of violence. "We are so tolerant here," she said Wednesday as she looked at the smoldering rubble of the school, the 14th Muslim building attacked by arsonists, bombers or graffiti sprayers in the past five days.

The Nov. 2 killing of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, allegedly by an Islamic extremist, unleashed powerful resentments that have shaken many Dutch.

"Extremism is reaching the roots of our democracy," Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende warned Parliament on Wednesday.

A tradition of ethnic and religious harmony, a well-known tolerance for marijuana use and avant-garde policies on euthanasia and alternative medicine have made the Netherlands synonymous for many people with broad mindedness.

But Van Gogh's murder and the ensuing attacks are only the latest and most dramatic signs of ethnic turmoil here — an uneasiness that mirrors tensions throughout Europe between host and immigrant populations.

Police raided a house in The Hague on Wednesday, ending a 15-hour standoff in which one suspect and three officers were wounded, authorities said. Two suspected terrorists were arrested in the raid and a third was detained in another city.

The standoff began when special forces tried to storm the house but aborted the effort after suspects threw a hand grenade, injuring the three officers, Police Chief Gerard Bouwman said. It ended with a second raid shortly before dark.

Police sealed off the area while they searched the building for explosives.

Bouwman said two suspects were arrested in the standoff. A third was detained in the city of Utrecht in a related investigation, according to the national prosecutor's office.

In neighboring Belgium, a recent opinion poll ranked an anti-immigrant party as the most popular in Dutch-speaking Flanders. Far-right parties in Germany appear poised to win seats in parliament for the first time since World War II. And France is immersed in a heated debate about the government banning Muslim head scarves and other religious symbols from schools.

But none of those countries has seen the spasm of violence that is wracking Holland. A police raid on suspected Islamic militants Wednesday that saw three officers and a suspect wounded amid grenade explosions and gunshots added to the unease.

For the Dutch, it's evidence of a painful loss of innocence they are now tracing to the assassination two years ago of Pim Fortuyn, a gay, populist politician who won a following by campaigning against immigrants, especially Muslims.

Van Gogh, a distant relative of painter Vincent Van Gogh, was killed while bicycling on a busy Amsterdam street. A 26-year-old Muslim militant, Mohammed Bouyeri, allegedly shot the filmmaker several times, stabbed him and slit his throat, then impaled him with a letter threatening a Dutch politician who wrote the script for Van Gogh's film "Submission."

The detention of Bouyeri and five others also believed to be members of a radical Islamic terrorist group has been followed by what seems to be a cycle of retaliation between Christian and Muslim extremists.

Molotov cocktails caused minor damage at churches in Rotterdam, Utrecht and Amersfoort following a half dozen similar attacks on Muslim buildings. An Islamic school in Eindhoven was bombed Monday night, and the one in Uden was burned down Tuesday. No injuries were reported.

On Wednesday, a brawl broke out between ethnic Dutch youths and ethnic Turks and Moroccans in the first direct racial confrontation since Van Gogh's murder. About 30 people tangled before police with dogs broke up the fight, witnesses said.

"This is a negative spiral that's threatening to turn into attack and counterattack," Mohammed Sini, chairman of national Muslim organization Citizens and Islam, said earlier this week. "There's a risk that we'll have an unbridgeable 'us and them' opposition between parts of the population."

About 6 percent of the country's 16 million people are Muslim, and the proportion is well over 10 percent in major cities.

The first inkling of deep racial tensions came after the Fortuyn murder in 2002, which triggered an outpouring of anger at Muslim residents. Although it turned out his killer was a native Dutch animal-rights activist, the damage to racial harmony was done. The government's attitude toward newcomers hardened and thousands of asylum seekers were expelled.

Van Gogh's killing may be intensifying attitudes even more. Some members of Balkenende's Cabinet are hinting at a tougher line on Islamic immigrants.

"This murder raises doubts, doubts about whether we have been too lax. Natives and immigrants in the Netherlands cannot look away and excuse radicalism," Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk said Wednesday.