Sydney siege: Gunman takes hostages in Lindt cafe

[OldGit]

The gunman must be getting tired and twitchy now.  Not good.

[jumbojak]

I'm with Icarus, and almost agree with The Gray One.

As for Turkey ... Secular Democracy?  Erdogan's going more Islamist every day, and yesterday he locked up a bunch of opposition journalists.

To be fair to ol' E-man, Turkey has a long history of locking up opposition journalists. Normally they were affiliated with Kurdish organizations, but still....

[OldGit]

True, but then it wasn't an Islamist locking them up!

[xSilverPhinx]

More people have escaped, some have been injured, shots have been fired and police finally stormed the building.

Updates

Edited to add: siege is over

[OldGit]

They're now saying two hostages and the gunman dead.

[Firebird]

They're now saying two hostages and the gunman dead.

Glad it's over, but sad to hear about the two hostages. He sounded like a lone wolf nutcase.
Also bizarre that he was Iranian but demanded an ISIS flag.

[xSilverPhinx]

Sad to hear about the 2 dead, glad it wasn't more though.

The gunman was some piece of work.

[Bluenose]

The gunman appears to have been mentally disturbed.  He was a self styled islamic cleric (apparently known in Sydney as "The Fake Sheik"). He had a series of convictions for various violent crimes and was out on bail on a charge of accessory to murder of his wife.  Apparently the bail was granted because of weaknesses in the prosecution case.  Apparently the end of the seige came about when the gunman was drifting off to sleep and the remaining hostages made a mass break for freedom and the manager of the cafe tried to wrestle the shotgun from the gunman who woke up and started shooting, killing the manager.  It is not clear how the other hostages who were shot (one fatally, one in the sholder, one in the thigh and one in the foot as well as a policemane who was hit in the cheek "by a few pellets".)  In my opinion, the police were doing the right thing, attempting to resolve the issue without anyone getting hurt, but at the ready incase something happened, which of course we now know it did.

I don't think it is useful to comment on the man's religion as a causative factor in this except as perhaps by him being predisposed to listen to the extremist venom from the IS idiots providing a tipping point force for someone who was mantally on the edge anyway.  I don't see it as being any different than any mentally disturbed person fixating on some thing or another and then launching some action that hurts others.  Is it any the worse because he was a muslim than when some xtian zealot kills a doctor outside an abortion clinic?  I am not apologising for this person, it just disturbs me when I hear bigots using the actions of some possibly psychotic person to justify vitriol against a whole class of people.

Beyond everything else, though, I feel a deep sadness for the hostages and their family and friends, especially of the two who lost their lives.  Nothing anyone can say will ease the hurt they must be feeling.

[Eric V Arachnid]

Apparently no one has been harmed yet and the lone gunman is demanding both an ISIS flag and to talk to the Australian Prime Minister.  

and a hostage would be released.

Of course that was denied.
Our prime minister is brain damaged.
Have you seen him, listened to him for a little bit?

We should have arranged for a person in control of their whits to impersonate our PM in times of crisis.

[xSilverPhinx]

Apparently no one has been harmed yet and the lone gunman is demanding both an ISIS flag and to talk to the Australian Prime Minister. 

and a hostage would be released.

Of course that was denied.
Our prime minister is brain damaged.
Have you seen him, listened to him for a little bit?

No, I haven't had the pleasure. Does Australia also openly take the stance that there will be absolutely no negotiating with terrorists?

We should have arranged for a person in control of their whits to impersonate our PM in times of crisis.

I agree. Same thing could be said for all politicians...

[Icarus]

I admire and respect Bluenose. He has taken the high road in his post above.  Unfortunately it is becoming ever more difficult for civilized people to take that high road. Too much has happened and is currently happening for us to remain conciliatory toward the legions of people who are bent on destroying us.

Today the news is that seven men invaded a school in Pakistan. They slaughtered 130 school children. The same apparent mindset destroyed 3000 innocents on the infamous date of  Sept. 11. Boco Harram kidnaps 200 girls, Al Shabab is killing east Africans in wholesale lots, a group organized the bombing of the Cole in Yemen, The train bombings in Spain, and too many other deadly incidents to list. All the perpetrators have a common denominator. They all worship Allah and Allah and his contemporary disciples are disposed toward destroying Kafirs.

All Muslims are not stupid or murderous. The peaceful ones hopefully outnumber the terrorist ones. The civilized world has become more than weary of the senseless killings of innocent children and their families and associates. I blame the peaceful ones for failing to take up a cause against these travesties. It would be in their best interests to discourage, even eliminate, the madrassas who teach such divisiveness with the rest of the world.  The peaceful ones could make a serious difference if only they had the will to do so. World opinion is being poisoned against Islam. Can they not see that hand writing on the wall?

Blue has likened the Australian crazy terrorist to the American whacko Xtians who kill abortion doctors. Maybe so but those attacks are rare. One murder every five years or so.  The Islamic whackos are doing their thing every day, they cut off the heads of innocent victims and make boastful films about their barbarity..  The rare homicidal abortion protester merely shoots the doctor and almost never has a camera crew to film his heroic act. 

[Firebird]

I've posted this before, but I think it's worth saying again.
It all depends on who twists the religion in which way, doesn't it?
Does anyone honestly think that if Christianity had been the predominant religion to spread through the Arab or Persian worlds that things would be much better? That their governments wouldn't have been corrupt, that the Western world wouldn't have tried to exploit them for their natural resources and riches and set off the conflicts that we see today? Christianity and Judaism is no less batshit crazy than Islam when it comes to the original teachings. Heck, covering women with the hijab is not even something mentioned in Islam. It's someone's twisted interpretation of the Koran which could easily have been applied to the Bible and its subjugation of women.
We in the west are lucky to have had a strong government that people feel represent them, despite its flaws. Those same governments have also screwed up the Middle East while trying to get to its oil, propped up corrupt governments, divided countries with no discernible logic, and basically made the people less confident in government. So they turn to religion as a way to feel they belong to something important and holy, and Islam was the most predominant one in that area.  Not only that, but Arab and sub-saharan Africa have tended to be more clan-based in structure, placing its importance over that of any local government, which further weakens any loyalty they have to government and country, and makes them vulnerable to extremism.
Islam by itself is only one part of the reason why some societies in the middle east and Africa are so screwed up and hotbeds of extremism.  Uganda is 85% Christian and still passed laws saying homosexuals should die. Malaysia is a dominant Islam country too, yet you do not see much jihadism there. India has more Muslims than any other country, and while relations with them and the rest of the country are tense, you don't see suicide bombings from Indian Muslims. Why is that?
All this is to say that the local culture and history matters more than which book the population happens to follow at this time. Islam deserves some blame, but not it's all about Islam and nothing else.

[Eric V Arachnid]

No, I haven't had the pleasure. Does Australia also openly take the stance that there will be absolutely no negotiating with terrorists?

Ye that's the line,  but I'm not sure if never really means never.
http://ada.asn.au/commentary/formal-comment/2004/negotiating-with-terrorists.html



Our gunman was granted asylum as a sheer mulslim, I assume because he was endangered by sunnis.
Then he converts to become a sunni and supports those that drove him to seek asylum, and kills a few of the people that gave him sanctuary.
Funny ha?

[xSilverPhinx]

No, I haven't had the pleasure. Does Australia also openly take the stance that there will be absolutely no negotiating with terrorists?

Ye that's the line,  but I'm not sure if never really means never.
http://ada.asn.au/commentary/formal-comment/2004/negotiating-with-terrorists.html

Luckily for the hostages he was incompetent, apparently he dozed off and a few took the opportunity to escape. If he had known what he was doing the death toll could have been higher. The government certainly risked lives by refusing to negotiate, I think. He could have easily killed a few to get his point across. Most of these jihadists have a death wish anyways...

On the other hand, if the government is seen to negotiate with terrorism, it could encourage more acts.

I don't know.

Our gunman was granted asylum as a sheer mulslim, I assume because he was endangered by sunnis.
Then he converts to become a sunni and supports those that drove him to seek asylum, and kills a few of the people that gave him sanctuary.
Funny ha?

The guy was clearly insane.

[Davin]

I agree that in this case, blaming the man's religion doesn't do very much. But it adds to a fast growing list of bad things done in the name of Islam, and the much larger list of bad things done in the name of religion.