An armed gunman took customers and staff of a cafe in central Sydney hostage on Monday morning. Five of the hostages are now out of the building, but it remains unclear whether they escaped or were freed. The cafe remains surrounded by heavily armed New South Wales police. Some inside the cafe were apparently forced to stand at the cafe’s windows holding up a flag bearing what appears to be the Islamic creed.
Here is a summary of what we know so far:
- Five hostages have fled the Lindt Cafe in Martin Place in Sydney and an unknown number remain inside. It is not clear if the hostages escaped or were freed and police are not confirming either ways for operational reasons. One of the hostages is in St Vincent’s Hospital in a “satisfactory condition”.
- Police have identified the gunman but have asked media outlets not to publish his name. At this stage there is only one confirmed gunman.
- The hostages were forced to raise a black flag with white writing. It has been wrongly reported as a flag of Islamic State. The flag appears to bear the Shahada, an Islamic creed which reads: “There is no god but God, Muhammad is the messenger of God.” It can be a benign symbol and appears across the Islamic world, including on the Saudi Arabian flag. But it has also been embraced by jihadi groups such as Jabhat Al-Nusra, an al-Qaida affiliate currently fighting in Syria.
- Police are treating the siege as a counter-terror operation.
- The gunman took customers and staff at the Lindt Cafe hostage at 9.45am local time and has contacted multiple media outlets making demands through the hostages.
- Mosques, synagogues and churches across Australia are inviting the public to gather tonight to pray for a peaceful resolution to the siege in a show of multi-faith unity.
- Prime minister Tony Abbott has said the gunman has political motivations:
This is a very disturbing incident. It is profoundly shocking that innocent people should be held hostage by an armed person claiming political motivation.
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