Sydney: The lone gunman, who held over a dozen people hostage at a popular cafe in Sydney, has been identified as 50-year-old Man Haron Monis.
Monis went down in a hail of bullets after heavily armed police teams stormed the Lindt Chocolat cafe on Martin Place in Sydney’s central business district. A bomb-disposal robot was also deployed during the operation. At least two people have been killed in the firefight.
According to reports, Monis, originally from Iran, turned up on Australia police’s radar seven years ago, when he sent vile letters to the families of dead Australian soldiers.
Then in 2013, Monis faced over 50 allegations of sexual assault from the time he allegedly spent as a self-proclaimed “spiritual healer” in west Sydney, over a decade ago.
In the same year, he was also charged in with being an accessory to his ex-wife, Noleen Hayson Pal’s murder. Pal was stabbed and set alight inside an apartment. Monis’ girlfriend, Amirah Droudis, was charged with the murder.
Australia officials believe that Monday’s attack on the cafe was due to Monis’ rising frustration with his several legal problems. The dramatic cafe siege also follows months of warnings about probable “lone wolf” attacks.
Monday’s hostage crisis comes just months after the October 22 raid on Canada’s Parliament building in Ottawa by Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, who shot dead Nathan Cirillo, a sentry who was standing guard at the official site.
Australia had upgraded its security alert in September in the face of extremist threats, ramping up an anti-terror crackdown after foiling a plot by IS jihadists to carry out “demonstration executions” in the country.
“I am deeply concerned about the threat that lone-wolf terrorism poses to people,” Prime Minister Tony Abbott said in September.
Anne Aly, an associate professor specialising in counter-terrorism at Curtin University, said radicalisation in Australia had been a gradual process over the last five years but had become more noticeable since the rise of IS.
“The jihadist narrative has been all about victimhood and persecution,” she said.
