Netherlands braces for ‘jihad’

THE HAGUE — The Dutch government yesterday vowed tough measures against what a leading politician called “the arrival of jihad in the Netherlands” after a death threat to a Dutch lawmaker was found spiked with a knife to the body of a slain filmmaker by his radical Muslim attacker.

A five-page letter released Thursday night by the justice minister forced political leaders — including Amsterdam’s Jewish mayor and members of parliament — to take on bodyguards.

The document, attached to the body of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, was titled “An Open Letter to [Aayan] Hirsi Ali,” referring to a Somali-born member of parliament. She had scripted Mr. van Gogh’s latest film, “Submission,” which criticized the treatment of women under Islam.

Miss Hirsi Ali, who calls herself an ex-Muslim, has gone into hiding.

“Death, Ms. Hirsi Ali, is the common theme of all that exists. You and the rest of the cosmos cannot escape this truth,” the letter said.

“There will come a day when one soul cannot help another soul. A day that goes paired with terrible tortures, … when the unjust will press horrible screams from their lungs.

“Screams, Ms. Hirsi Ali, that will cause chills to run down a person’s back, and make the hairs on their heads stand straight up. People will be drunk with fear, while they are not drunken. Fear will fill the air on the Great Day,” the letter said.

“I know definitely that you, Oh America, will go down. I know definitely that you, Oh Europe, will go down. I know definitely that you, Oh Netherlands, will go down. I know definitely that you, Oh Hirsi Ali, will go down,” it said.

Deputy Prime Minister Gerrit Zalm agreed with comments by other politicians who called Mr. van Gogh’s slaying a declaration of Islamic jihad, or “holy war.”

“We are not going to tolerate this. We are going to ratchet up the fight against this sort of terrorism,” he said. “The increase in radicalization is worse than we had thought.”

Among measures under consideration is an emergency law to enable authorities to revoke the Dutch nationality of dual citizens suspected of terrorist activity so that they can be deported.

Mr. Zalm said the intelligence service, which already has expanded since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, would receive more funding to help it monitor potential terrorist recruits.

The suspected killer in the van Gogh case, a 26-year-old Dutch-Moroccan national, was arraigned on six terrorism-related charges.

Mr. van Gogh, a descendant of 19th-century Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, was fatally shot and stabbed Tuesday while cycling down an Amsterdam street. The remains of the provocative social commentator and author, whose throat was slashed in the attack, will be cremated Tuesday in a public service.

The slaying is testing already strained relations between the ethnic Dutch population and the Muslim community. There are about 300,000 Moroccan immigrants in the Netherlands out of a population of 16 million.

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