On December 15th, 2014, Australian Police stormed a cafe in which 17 hostages were being held at gunpoint by Man Haron Monis, a self-proclaimed Islamic extremist.
This event took place at the Lindt Chocolate Cafe, a cafe in the heart of Sydney, in Australia. The armed man took control of the Lindt Chocolate Cafe on Martin Place in central Sydney around 9:45 a.m., effectively trapping employees and customers inside. He had also held up a black flag with white Arabic script, similar to those used by ISIS in other continents such as Syria, and Iran.
Also during the day, five people fled the cafe, including two employees, but it was not clear whether the Haron Man Monis had allowed them to leave or they had escaped on their own.
Haron Man Monis was declared dead at the scene, New South Wales Deputy Commissioner Catherine Burn said. After police stormed the cafe, Tori Johnson, a manager of the store, was killed, according to Lindt Chocolate Cafe Australia. The other hostage who was killed was identified as attorney and mother of three Katrina Dawson, 38, according to the New South Wales Bar Association. Six people at the scene were treated for injuries.
South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said that the decision to enter the premises came after they heard gunshots coming from inside the Lindt Cafe. The Commissioner also confirmed that, in total, Monis had been holding seventeen people hostage, though up to twelve of those individuals had been able to get out of the store before police began their assault. The Australian counter-terrorism police said on the Wednesday after the standoff they arrested two men in Sydney, eight days after a hour siege in the central city cafe which ended with the deaths of two hostages and a gunman with radical Islamist sympathies. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott had said on Tuesday that security officials intercepted a heightened level of "terrorist chatter" in the aftermath of the Sydney cafe siege, but there were no specific threats of attacks.
A 20-year-old man was charged with being in possession of documents designed to facilitate a terrorist attack, and a 21-year-old was charged with breaching a control order, police said. The documents had mentioned potential government targets but were not directed at the prime minister, Australian Police Deputy Commissioner Michael Phelan told a media conference in Sydney.
Australia, a staunch ally of the United States and its action against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, is on high alert for attacks by sympathizers of the radical group and from home-grown militants returning from fighting in the Middle East. Police said they had now arrested and charged 11 people with terrorism-related offenses since launching massive raids in Sydney and Brisbane in September, soon after raising the terror threat to high, or red alert for the first time.