(News.com.au) Police have authorised the naming of Sheik Man Haron Monis, 49, who is a self-styled preacher of Islamic State on bail for accessory to murder, as the gunman who is holding 15 terrified hostages in Sydney’s Lindt cafe.
He has a sawn-off shotgun and is understood to be a fringe Islamist. The gunman arrived in Australia as a refugee in 1996, The Australian and Sky News reports.
Hundreds of heavily-armed police continue to hold an intense security cordon around the Lindt Cafe in Martin Place and central Sydney remains in lockdown as negotiators try to secure the safe release of hostages caught in a siege.
Five hostages emerged from the central Sydney cafe yesterday.
They are being held by Monis who has forced them to display an Islamic flag, which has sparked fears of a terrorist attack.
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(JPost) According to Sky News Australia, the man is also demanding that authorities deliver Islamic State flags to the café. Earlier on Monday, hostages were seen holding a black flag with Arabic and Islamic insignia against the window of the Lindt café in the center of Sydney’s business hub.
Sky News reported on Monday that there are fears the assailant has planted four bombs on the premises. Television reports also indicate that the gunman is using one of the female hostages as a human shield, complicating efforts to bring the crisis to a resolution.
An Australian television channel, Network Ten, reportedly spoke to two hostages inside the café. The hostages “were hysterical as they relayed the man’s demands.”
Australia asks Israel for Israel an for anti-terror advice.
(Times Israel) Israel is in contact with Australian authorities over the unfolding hostage situation in a Sydney coffee shop, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Monday.
Speaking to Israel Radio, Ya’alon said that Israel would do anything it could to help.
Police have said they are negotiating with the gunman, who has apparently made a number of demands via phone calls that hostages were forced to make to local media organizations.
Australian officials have yet to confirm that the Monday morning attack, in which a gunman stormed a central Sydney cafe and took an unknown number of people hostage, is terror related, though they have pointed to indications that it is “politically motivated.”
Shortly after taking the coffee shop, the gunman forced hostages to display a flag with an Islamic affirmation of faith, leading some to believe the incident was related to Islamist terror.
“This seems to be another attack by an Islamist, jihadist organization, part of the phenomenon of the spread of global jihad, and the terrorism it brings to different places, which also reaches Australia,” Ya’alon told the radio station.
He did not say what led him to the conclusion that the attack was connected to a jihadist organization.
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