Police storm Sydney cafe to end hostage siege, three dead
BY LINCOLN
FEAST AND COLIN PACKHAM
SYDNEY Mon Dec 15, 2014 6:34pm EST
(Reuters) - Heavily armed Australian police
stormed a Sydney
cafe early on Tuesday morning and freed a number of hostages being held there
at gunpoint, in a dramatic end to a 16-hour siege in which three people
including the attacker were killed.
Police have not publicly identified the
gunman but a police source named him as Man Haron Monis, an Iranian refugee and
self-styled sheikh known for sending hate mail to the families of Australian
troops killed in Afghanistan.
He was charged last year with being an accessory to the murder of his ex-wife.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the gunman
was well known to authorities and had a history of extremism and mental
instability.
During the siege at the Lindt cafe in Sydney's central business
district, hostages had been forced to display an Islamic flag, igniting fears
of a jihadist attack in the heart of the country's biggest city.
Around 2
a.m. local time (10.00 a.m.
ET on Monday), at least six people believed to have been held captive managed
to flee after gunshots were heard coming from the cafe.
Police then moved in, with heavy gunfire
and blasts from stun grenades echoing from the building.
"They made the call because they
believed at that time if they didn't enter there would have been many more
lives lost," said Andrew Scipione, police commissioner for the state of New South Wales.
An investigation would determine whether
hostages were killed by the gunman or died in cross-fire, Scipione told
reporters just before dawn.
Police said a 50-year-old man, believed to
be the attacker, was killed. Television pictures showed he appeared to have
been armed with a sawn-off shotgun.
A man aged 34 and a 38-year-old woman were
also killed, police said. The man was the cafe manager and the woman was a
mother and barrister, local media reported. Four were wounded, including a
policeman hit in the face with shotgun pellets.
Medics tried to resuscitate at least one
person after the raid and took away several wounded people on gurneys, said a
Reuters witness at the scene. Bomb squad members moved in to search for
explosives, but none were found.
So far 17 hostages have been accounted for,
including at least five others who were released or escaped on Monday.
"To the people of Sydney, this was an isolated incident ... Do
not let this sort of incident bring about any loss of confidence of working or
visiting our city," said Scipione.
On Tuesday morning, the area near the cafe
remained cordoned off, with bystanders and passing office workers leaving
flowers under police tape. Flags flew at half mast across the city.
Leaders from around the world had expressed
their concern over the siege, including Stephen Harper, the prime minister of Canada, which
suffered an attack on its parliament by a suspected jihadist sympathizer in
October.
NO LINKS TO TERROR GROUPS
Monis was found guilty in 2012 of sending
offensive and threatening letters to families of eight Australian soldiers
killed in Afghanistan, as a
protest against Australia's
involvement in the conflict, according to local media reports. Monis was also
facing more than 40 charges of sexual assault.
"He had a long history of violent
crime, infatuation with extremism and mental instability," Abbott told
reporters in Canberra.
The prime minister did not identify the gunman.
A U.S.
security official said the U.S.
government was being advised by Australia
that there was no sign at this stage that the gunman was connected to known
terrorist organizations.
Although the hostage taker was known to the
authorities, security experts said preventing attacks by people acting alone
could be difficult.
"We are entering a new phase of
terrorism that is far more dangerous and more difficult to defeat than al Qaeda
ever was," said Cornell University law professor
Jens David Ohlin, speaking in New York.
ON ALERT
Australia, a staunch ally of the United States
and its escalating action against Islamic State in Syria
and Iraq, has been on high
alert for attacks by home-grown militants returning from fighting in the Middle East or their supporters.
News footage showed hostages in the cafe
holding up a black and white flag displaying the Shahada, a testament to the
faith of Muslims. The flag has been popular among Sunni Islamist militant
groups such as Islamic State and al Qaeda.
The incident forced the evacuation of
nearby buildings and sent shockwaves around a country where many people were
turning their attention to the Christmas holiday after earlier security scares.
In September, anti-terrorism police said
they had thwarted an imminent threat to behead a random member of the public
and days later, a teenager in the city of Melbourne
was shot dead after attacking two anti-terrorism officers with a knife.
The siege cafe is in Martin Place, a pedestrian strip popular
with workers on a lunch break, which was revealed as a potential location for
the thwarted beheading.
Muslim leaders urged calm. The Australian
National Imams Council condemned "this criminal act unequivocally" in
a joint statement with the Grand Mufti of Australia.
The security operation was the biggest in Sydney since a bombing at
the Hilton Hotel killed two people in 1978.
(Additional reporting by Jane Wardell, Matt
Siegel, Swati Pandey, Wayne Cole and Jason Reed in Sydney and Mark Hosenball in
Washington; Writing by Mike Collett-White and Dean Yates; Editing by Mark
Bendeich)
Structure of the Lead：
who-Heavily armed Australian police
what-Heavily armed Australian police stormed a Sydney cafe and freed a number of hostages being held there at gunpoint, in a dramatic end to a 16-hour siege in which three people including the attacker were killed.
when-early on Tuesday morning
where-a Sydney cafe
why-not given
how-not given
Keywords：
1. storm 闖入
2. free 釋放
3. hostage 人質
4. gunpoint 槍口下
5. sheikh 酋長
6. Afghanistan 阿富汗
7. accessory 幫兇
8. extremism 極端主義
9. ignite 點燃
10. jihadist 聖戰
11. flee 逃跑
12. gunshot 槍聲
13. stun grenades 暈眩手榴彈
14. commissioner 專員
15. barrister 律師
16. pellet 子彈
17. resuscitate 復甦
18. raid 襲擊
19. cordon off 封鎖
20. staunch 堅定的
