HOLLAND: Dutch authorities are investigating a radical Muslim group they suspect has links to the man accused of killing a filmmaker critical of Islam and to bombings in Casablanca last year.
The Interior Minister, Mr Johan Remkes, and the Justice Minister, Mr Piet Hein Donner, told parliament in a letter yesterday that the 26-year-old Dutch-Moroccan charged with murdering Theo van Gogh had helped a radical group under observation since summer 2002.
They said that the group of young Muslims of north African origin centred on Amsterdam often met at the home of Mohammed B.
He was charged last week with killing Mr van Gogh, conspiracy to murder a politician and membership of a group with "terrorist" plans.
The ministers said members of the group had visited Pakistan, possibly for training for jihad or holy war, and had contact with a man suspected by Morocco of involvement in last year's Casablanca bombings and arrested by Spain last October.
The attacks in the Moroccan city in May 2003 killed 45 people, including 12 suicide bombers.
On Wednesday police arrested seven people suspected of belonging to a radical Muslim network, two of them after storming a flat in The Hague where they had taken refuge.
But the police declined to say if they were linked with Mr van Gogh's death or the Mohammed B group.
Wednesday's siege, in which a grenade wounded four police, further ratcheted up tensions stirred by the death of Mr van Gogh, who was shot and stabbed as he cycled to work on November 2nd.
The letter to parliament said the security services would be strengthened and laws tightened so people with dual nationality could be stripped of their Dutch citizenship if they commit crimes.
New laws will also allow the closing of mosques if they engage in activities contrary to public order, it added.
The killing of Mr van Gogh, whose criticism of Islam had outraged Muslims, has led to a series of apparent tit-for-tat attacks on mosques, churches and schools, undermining the Dutch reputation for tolerance and raising fears among immigrant communities.
A classroom in a Catholic school in Eindhoven was destroyed late on Wednesday in a suspected arson attack.
A mosque in the north of the country was daubed with racist words and symbols, including swastikas, while police in the south believe they foiled a planned arson attack on another mosque when they arrested two men.
However, the area under siege on Wednesday in The Hague was reopened for residents, some of whom the Prime Minister, Mr Jan Peter Balkenende, spoke to during a walk-through yesterday.
"People of different nationalities should live together peacefully," he said after meeting the city's mayor and shaking hands with local Moroccan children.
In addition to Mohammed B, police are holding five people who are suspected of conspiracy to murder Mr van Gogh and others, and participation in a criminal group with terrorist intent.