NEW DELHI/SYDNEY: Australian police locked down the center of the country’s biggest city on Monday after an armed assailant walked into a downtown Sydney cafe, took hostages and forced them to display an Islamic flag, igniting fears of a jihadist attack. Here are the 10 latest developments in the crisis so far:
1: Five people, three men and two women, have fled the cafe. The first development came six hours after the hostage crisis began, when three men were seen running from a fire exit of the Lindt Chocolat Cafe in downtown Sydney. Shortly afterward, two women, one after another, sprinted from the cafe and into the arms of heavily armed police. Both were wearing aprons with the Lindt chocolate logo, indicating they were cafe employees.
2: The gunman appears to be in his late 40s to 50s, wearing a back and white bandanna
3. There is at least one hostage-taker.
4. According to Australian TV channels, the hostage-taker has two demands: To speak with Australian PM Tony Abbott and to have an Isis flag brought to the cafe.
5: The hostage-taker has warned that four bombs have been planted around the city
6. Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who has warned of militant plans to strike Australian targets, said there were indications the hostage situation at the cafe was politically motivated.
“This is a very disturbing incident. I can understand the concerns and anxieties of the Australian people,” Abbott told reporters in Canberra, without providing any information on the siege.
7. The hostages were forced to raise a black flag with white writing. Local media reports said the flag was the Shahada, a general expression of faith in Islam, a translation of which is: “There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.”
8. Major banks closed their offices in the central business district and people were told to avoid the area. Shops in a four block radius were shut, leaving large parts of the CBD all but deserted by mid-afternoon.
9. Ray Hadley, a popular radio jockey, said he had been contacted by a hostage and could hear the suspected gunman issuing orders in the background. Police declined to comment on Hadley’s claim.
10. Concerns about an attack in Australia by radical Islamists have been growing for more than a year, with the security agency raising its national terrorism public alert to “high” in September.
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Courtesy:The Times of India