THREE Dutch policemen were shot at and wounded by a hand grenade yesterday when they moved on a suspected terrorist hideout in The Hague, as religious violence spiralled across the country.

An Islamic school was burnt down, taking the number of attacks on mosques, churches, Muslim schools and Muslim community associations to 18.

Jan Peter Balkenende, the Dutch Prime Minister, pleaded with his people not to allow the country to be “swept away by a maelstrom of violence”.

He said that the spate of attacks, sparked by the brutal murder of Theo van Gogh, the Dutch film-maker and critic of Islam, threatened democracy.

Last night a group of Dutch skinheads clashed with ethnic Turks and Moroccans in The Hague. About 30 people were involved in the brawl before police with dogs broke it up.

Airspace over The Hague was closed as heavily armed Dutch special police moved into a suspected terrorist hideout in the poor immigrant neighbourhood of Laak in the early hours. The area was sealed off as 200 police in riot gear, some with machineguns, surrounded the area and snipers perched on rooftops.

Stunned local people were escorted away under police protection, and ambulances and fire engines were on standby.

As the security forces approached they came under attack from gunfire and a grenade was thrown at them, injuring three policemen, two of them seriously.

A local resident, Sylvia Cordia, 42, said: “It was like a war movie being played out in front of my house. I saw one policeman crumple to the ground and another was dragged to safety. There were several people in the house, and I heard a man yelling, ‘I’ll chop your head off.’ ”

Anna Bogac, 35, a Polish immigrant, said: “It’s unthinkable that things like this are happening here now. I moved here when I did because I thought this was the place where people could be free and not worry about terrorism.”

The siege ended peacefully after 15 hours when police arrested two men. They are suspected of terrorist conspiracy, a prosecutor said. Later police in Amsterdam arrested four more suspects, believed to be members of a radical Islamist network.

The Government refused to confirm that the operation had been part of a crackdown against Islamic extremists after the murder of Mr van Gogh. The outspoken film-maker was shot six times and nearly decapitated with a butcher’s knife during the day in an Amsterdam street last week. Six people, including the alleged killer, Mohammed Bouyeri, a Dutch Moroccan, have been arrested in connection with the murder and provisionally charged with belonging to a “terrorist conspiracy”.

Intelligence services have given warning that there are 150 Islamic radicals in the Netherlands, and the Government pledged a “war on extremism”, promising to root out Islamist networks and deport those suspected of extremist links.

The raid came as the Bedir Islamic school in Uden was burnt down in a reprisal attack. Among the profanities daubed on school windows were the words “Theo R.I.P” and “white power”.

It was the second school to be attacked in the wave of religious violence that has swept the Netherlands since the murder. Nine mosques have been attacked, seven by arsonists. Others have been vandalised with anti-Islamic abuse daubed across them, and one had a pig’s head dumped outside. Two Moroccan community associations have also been attacked.

In counter-reprisals, five churches have been attacked by arsonists. A Middle Eastern Islamic extremist group has threatened to attack the Netherlands unless the attacks on mosques stop.

The Netherlands has long prided itself on its tolerance and liberalism, and politicians are shocked at the outbreak of community violence. Muslims make up nearly a million of the country’s 16 million people, and relations were already tense after the murder two years ago of the populist politician Pim Fortuyn, who campaigned for a halt to Muslim immigration.

In an emergency statement, Mr Balkenende told parliament: “It is the joint task of Muslims and non-Muslims to warn young people against radicalisation. Together we need to work toward a peaceful society.”

In an earlier interview, he said: “I’m worried about the climate of hardening,” and condemned “this sort of climate change that we’re seeing in the Netherlands”.

One opinion poll showed that 40 per cent of Dutch people felt that Muslims were no longer welcome, while 90 per cent said the Dutch were becoming less tolerant. After the second murder in two years of a critic of Islam, there is a widespread fear that the Dutch are losing their freedom of speech.

Rita Verdonk, the Immigration Minister, warned the rest of Europe to heed the lessons of the Netherlands, and “urgently” work to integrate minorities into the mainstream society. Chairing a conference of EU immigration ministers about how to integrate minorities, she said: “I am speaking to you with an urgent tone. If we don’t do anything these problems will only get worse in the long term.”

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