A man is holding several people hostage at Martin Place cafe (Sydney Australia)

[ Register or Signin to view external links. ]

AN ARMED man is holding several people hostage at a cafe in Martin Place in Sydney.
There are hostages standing with their hands up at all the windows in the popular Lindt chocolate shop, which has two or three entrances. There is also a black and white flag being held up in a window. It is believed to be the Black Standard, a jihadist flag.
Staff in shop aprons can be seen with their hands on the windows.
Police officers have guns drawn outside the cafe.
The chocolate shop is 30 or 40 metres from the Channel 7 offices so they have cameras trained on the building. The newsroom at Channel 7 have been evacuated.
Trains around the area have been stopped and roads are blocked.
Train passengers have been ordered off trains and back onto the streets in Kings Cross.

---

Edit: As many as 30 people being held hostage at Lindt cafe
Police say at least one gunman involved
Incident not being treated as terrorism yet
Motivation of gunman unknown - but police have finally spoken directly with him
PM Tony Abbott urges calm: The whole point of politically motivated violence is to scare people.
HOSTAGES have emerged from the Lindt Cafe in central Sydney where they have been held by a gunman since just before 10am this morning.
Two people have just run from the building, two female Lindt cafe employees. That brings the total number of hostages who have now left the cafe to five.
Three other hostages ran from the cafe earlier this afternoon and are now speaking with police. It was not immediately clear if any of the hostages were released or if they had escaped.

[ Register or Signin to view external links. ]

Civilian inside the store posted this on FB
[ Register or Signin to view external links. ]

The terrorists name was released.
His name is Man Monis.

There is confirmed 4 bombs, 2 in the store and another 2 somewhere in Sydney, if the man dies the bombs go off.

Heavily armed police just stormed the cafe and took the man out!

[ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
[ Register or Signin to view external links. ]

There isn't much information about this as it's only happening now, But this is scary knowing ISIS is attacking in Australia