sydney siege
DESCRIPTION
On 15–16 December 2014, a lone gunman, Man Haron Monis, held hostage nine customers and eight employees of a Lindt chocolate café located at Martin Place in Sydney, Australia.After a 16-hour standoff, during which areas of the Sydney central business district surrounding the site were cordoned off and nearby buildings locked down, police officers from the Tactical Operations Unit stormed the café upon hearing gunshots from inside. At least one hostage was shot by Monis, who himself was shot dead after police entered in response. Two hostages died, while three hostages and a police officer were injured during the police raid.TRANSCRIPT
Cathy Wilcox Sydney Morning Herald
Sydney Siege
A Cartoon Conversation
Brett Lethbridge Courier-Mail
Christopher Downes Hobart(Mercury)
Colin Wicking NT News
Craig Mann The Gold Coast Bulletin
David Pope Canberra Times
David Rowe Financial Review
Harry Bruce Townsville Bulletin
Jon Kudelka The Australian
Jos Valdman The Advertiser
Mark Knight Herald Sun
Warren Brown The Daily Telegraph
David Rowe Financial Review
Alan Moir Sydney Morning Herald
Andrew Dyson The Age
Bill Leak The Australian
Brett Lethbridge Courier-Mail
John Tiedemann Daily Telegraph
Chris ROY Taylor Herald Sun
David Pope Canberra Times
On 15–16 December 2014, a lone gunman, Man Haron
Monis, held hostage nine customers and eight employees of a Lindt chocolate café located at Martin Place in Sydney,
Australia. After a 16-hour standoff, during which areas of
the Sydney central business district surrounding the site were cordoned off and nearby buildings locked down, police
officers from the Tactical Operations Unit stormed the café upon hearing gunshots from inside. At least one hostage
was shot by Monis, who himself was shot dead after police
entered in response. Two hostages died, while three hostag-es and a police officer were injured during the police raid.
Early on, hostages were seen holding a jihadist black flag up against the window of the café, with the Islamic shahadah
creed written on it in Arabic. Initially some media mistook it for the flag used by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Le-
vant (ISIL); the gunman later demanded that an ISIL flag
be brought to him in the middle of the crisis. The gunman was described as having indicated a "political motivation".
Police treated the event as a terrorist attack, and negotiated with Monis throughout the day. About 50 Muslim
groups issued a joint statement in which they condemned the incident.
The gunman, born in Iran as Mohammad Hassan Manteghi, had been granted political asylum in Australia in 2001. He
had a history of criminal charges including sexual assault,
and was to be tried as an accessory in his ex-wife's murder. He had been convicted for criminal use of the postal service
to "menace, harass or cause offence", for sending letters to the families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan in which he
called the soldiers murderers.
Eric Lobbecke The Australian
Harry Bruce Townsville Bulletin
John Polly Farmer Hobart Mercury
John Spooner The Age
Jos Valdman The Advertiser
Lindsay Foyle newmaltilda
Mark Knight Herald Sun
Warren Brown The Daily Telegraph
Bill Leak The Australian
John Polly Farmer Hobart Mercury
John Spooner The Age
Paul Zanetti The Cains Post
John Spooner The Age
Warren Brown The Daily Telegraph
Brett Lethbridge Courier-Mail
Alan Moir Sydney Morning Herald
John Polly Farmer Hobart Mercury
Mark Knight Herald Sun
Warren Brown The Daily Telegraph
Mark Knight Herald Sun
Warren Brown The Daily Telegraph
Neil Matterson The Sunday Mail (Queensland)
Peter MacMullin Sunday Mail (Adelaide)
John Polly Farmer Hobart Mercury
Five days on from the Martin Place siege that claimed two lives and placed
Sydney's CBD in lockdown, and questions still remain about what transpired inside the Lindt cafe, especially during the early hours of Tuesday.
Given the nature of the siege and what transpired when police stormed the cafe, a senior police source said there would not be one single person who
knew what took place.
About2am, with the siege now in its 17th hour, Monis began sorting the 18
hostages into separate groups inside the cafe, and one group kicked down an internal door and made their escape, a father of one hostage said.
Fairfax Media has been told that Monis, believed to be armed with a pump-action shotgun, managed to fire five rounds.
There have been varying reports that Ms Dawson was shot either by police,
or by Monis -- perhaps even both -- however, on Friday police sources were
still adamant it was too early to speculate.
Security experts have asked why commandos, located at Holsworthy and
who trained specifically for hostage situations before the G20 summit just weeks earlier, were not brought in.
However, the NSW police force's tactical operations group is a highly skilled
unit that deals with at least 200 "high-risk" situations, including siege and
hostage scenarios, each week.
Even while its officers were stationed outside the Lindt cafe on Monday
night, another unit had been dispatched to Sydney's western suburbs to de-
Eric Lobbecke The Australian
Cathy Wilcox Sydney Morning Herald
Ron Tandberg The Age
Cathy Wilcox