A Dutch diving school is under investigation after an instructor and three students were suspected of being Islamic militants.

The Safe Dive club in Eindhoven, Holland has come under scrutiny after a diving instructor and three of the students were suspected of Al-Qaeda links, raising fears of an attack by trained divers on the busy shipping port of Rotterdam.

35-year-old dive instructor Wahid Gomri, originally from Tunisia, denied any link to Islamic militants in an interview in the Sunday Times. He has left the Eindhover dive school and now lives in the north of England. Alarm grew after three of his students were arrested for suspected terrorist activities. Gomri and his students all attended the Al Fourkhan mosque in Eindhoven, which Dutch police have identified as a centre for extremist Muslim views.

Kasin Ali, an Iraqi, was charged with recruiting Dutch Muslims to fight for Al-Qaeda, but the case was abandoned by the Dutch authorities. Khalid Aziz, Iranian was suspected of being an Al-Qaeda agent but has not been charged. Both men remain in Holland. The third diving trainee, Mohamed Bouhmidi, an Algerian, is being held in Paris by the French authorities, suspected of planning a terror attack.

Rumours of an Al-Qaeda attack by trained divers have so far proved inaccurate, but this didn't stop PADI (US) handing over all the details of divers taking diving courses to the FBI, shortly after September 11 2001.

Speculation about the possibility of an attack on shipping or strategic buildings such as bridges has led to a number of alerts being issued, as well as trained dolphins and sealions being deployed to guard military shipping in the Gulf from possible attack by divers. Sonar technology has been developed by QinetiQ to warn harbours and shipping of the approach of divers.

Al-Qaeda have previously used RIBs packed with explosives in suicide attacks on shipping, such as the attack on USS Cole, but as yet no attacks by divers have been mounted. In fact many seasoned divers would regard the prospect of newly qualified PADI open water divers launching a stealth scuba attack against military shipping, or in low visibility harbour conditions, as quite laughable.



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