Police have arrested 16 people from Alphen aan de Rijn in Zuid-Holland over the last few months in connection with numerous gang-related explosions and shootings, the public prosecution office has said.

The prosecution office said the incidents, which took place between October 10 and October 17 at premises in Alphen aan de Rijn, Leiden, Rijnsateroude and Valkenburg were probably related to a conflict involving drugs.

Two of the men will appear in court on Thursday in connection with an attempted firebomb attack and a shooting in Alphen aan de Rijn. An investigation into the paymasters behind the attacks is still ongoing.

Between 2021 and 2023 the number explosives attacks on private and commercial property has increased fivefold, with 70% of incidents taking place in the Randstad conurbation around Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht.

Although police always worked on the assumption that most of the attacks could be linked to criminal gangs, research has since found that over half are the result of “domestic conflicts between non-criminal citizens, often over relationships”.

Justice minister David van Weel has expressed alarm about the increasingly frequent explosions in residential areas in the Netherlands in the wake of the devastating blast in The Hague that left six people dead.