Extremist gunman, two hostages dead in Sydney siege cafe
SYDNEY - Two hostages and an extremist Iranian-born gunman were killed in a siege that ended when armed police stormed a central Sydney cafe Tuesday, as a shocked Australia struggled to come to terms with the tragedy.
Police in SWAT-style gear hurled percussion grenades and opened fire in the early hours of the morning after a number of staff and customers managed to flee for their lives from the Lindt eatery in the heart of Australia's biggest city.
They moved in after hearing gunfire, and the 50-year-old lone gunman, widely named in the media as Man Haron Monis, was shot and killed in the exchange that followed, New South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said.
A man aged 34, and a woman identified as 38-year-old mother-of-three Katrina Dawson, were pronounced dead among the 17 hostages. Several others were injured.
"He had a long history of violent crime, infatuation with extremism and mental instability," Prime Minister Tony Abbott said of the hostage-taker, who had earlier unfurled an Islamic flag at the window of the cafe.
"As the siege unfolded... he sought to cloak his actions with the symbolism of the ISIL death cult."
Abbott said the man, on bail for a series of violent offences, was known to authorities as he praised police, saying Australians "should be reassured by the way our law enforcement and security agencies responded to this brush with terrorism".
