THE HAGUE – Nine tumultuous days in Holland that began with the murder in Amsterdam of filmmaker Theo van Gogh culminated yesterday in grenade explosions, rifle fire, and a 14-hour standoff between police and possible terror suspects.

The day began in the Laakkwartier neighborhood, a working-class immigrant enclave just a stone’s throw from the central Holland Spoor railway station, with two predawn blasts as police in riot gear and military special forces moved in on a suspected hideaway of terrorists.

As the initial push in an apartment began, three police officers were injured when suspects threw a grenade, police spokesmen said. By afternoon, five city streets around the small huddle of low-slung brick buildings were cordoned off, snipers were on the rooftops, bomb-sniffing dogs were brought in, and the sky buzzed with police surveillance helicopters.

A resident of the neighborhood told The New York Sun in an interview that he had heard a police negotiator tell someone in the house to come out with their hands up early in the morning. “I’ll chop off your head,” one suspect allegedly yelled in response. The exchange could not be independently confirmed. The neighbor, who would only provide his first name, Jan, was seen walking out of the barricaded area, where police checked his identity papers before allowing him pass.

“You don’t understand,” he said after giving his account of events. “This doesn’t happen in Holland.”

The siege ratcheted up the tension in a nation that has been on pins and needles since November 2, when Theo van Gogh was gunned down by a suspected Muslim extremist. The sequence of events that began with the filmmaker’s murder and continued with the arrests of six men thought to be part of a terrorist cell has made the Dutch question the wisdom of seeking to be the most tolerant nation in Europe, and has led them to ask themselves whether they are particularly vulnerable to terrorism.

“We wonder if we have suddenly become the fertile ground for radicalism,” a member of parliament from the Social Democratic Party, Jeroen Dysselbloem, said in an interview. “We’re having a hard time seeing all this as part of Dutch society. How could it have happened?”

Yesterday’s siege ended with “one suspect hurt in the shoulder,” a spokesman for the state prosecutor’s office told Agence France-Presse, adding that two men were arrested. Wire reports said another man, of Asian descent, was taken from the same apartment early yesterday morning.

The scene of the neighborhood siege was broadcast live all day on Dutch television’s RTL-5, with newscasters speculating that the swoop was in connection with the van Gogh murder investigation. A police spokesman declined to confirm that. The prosecutor in The Hague, Han Moraal, would say only that the move was “part of a continuing terror investigation.”

The Hague is the seat of the Dutch government, and yesterday’s siege came the day before members of parliament will have an opportunity to question ministers about how the van Gogh murder could have occurred. They are expected to investigate whether the intelligence services and other branches of government did all they could to prevent the killing.

They are also expected to start working on bills that would provide a legislative response to the terror-related events. The immigration minister, Rita Verdonk, is working on language for a law that would allow Islamic radicals to be deported, even if they carry Dutch passports. She said Holland had been “too naive” in opening its doors to so wide an array of immigrants.

The Dutch government declared war on Islamic terrorists Tuesday as van Gogh’s funeral was held at an Amsterdam cemetery. The prime minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, said van Gogh’s murder was an assault on freedom of speech and Holland’s tolerant way of life. He promised a crackdown on Islamic extremists.

Meanwhile, the six men suspected of involvement in the van Gogh murder remain in custody, including the alleged killer, Mohammed Bouyeri, 26, a Dutch national of Moroccan descent. Van Gogh, a fierce critic of Islam and the multicultural laxity of the Dutch Left, was shot and stabbed as he cycled through the center of Amsterdam last week. After slashing van Gogh’s neck with a butcher knife, the killer used the weapon to spike on his chest a letter in Dutch and Arabic threatening more violence. The Dutch press reported Tuesday that the alleged killer might be linked to an unidentified Syrian terrorist “mastermind” who was extradited last month to Germany.

He was suspected of plotting terrorist attacks on the Dutch parliament and the Borssele nuclear reactor. He also appears to have been a member of an Islamic “martyrs’ brigade” known as al-Takfir wal Hijra. Further details were not reported. It was unclear whether the suspects arrested yesterday were also thought to be part of the “martyrs’ brigade.”