Two killed as Australian police storm siege cafe

At least two people were killed as heavily armed Australian police early Tuesday dramatically stormed a central Sydney cafe to end a day-long siege sparked when an Iranian-born Islamist took several people hostage.
      
Security forces in SWAT-style gear intervened, unleashing a flurry of loud bangs and flashes in the eatery in the heart of Australia's biggest city, after a number of the staff and customers managed to flee for their lives.
      
An AFP photographer saw one body carried out. Australian media said that in addition, the gunman was shot dead by police. Sky News also reported four people were wounded, three of them critically.
      
Royal North Shore Hospital had admitted a woman in her 40s with a gunshot wound to her leg, a spokeswoman told AFP. She was in a serious but stable condition.
      
A bomb robot, which is used to detect and disarm explosives, was subsequently sent into the building as police declared the siege over and medics tended to hostages.
      
"Sydney siege is over. More details to follow," police announced on Twitter.
      
The hostagetaker, who earlier had unfurled an Islamic flag, was named by ABC television and other media as a 49-year-old Iranian-born "cleric" called Man Haron Monis.
      
They published a photo of him sporting a beard and a white turban and said he was on bail for a series of violent offences.
      
The preChristmas siege of the Lindt chocolate cafe began Monday morning and triggered a massive security lockdown in Sydney's financial district as hundreds of police surrounded the site.
      
Monis's former lawyer Manny Conditsis said the public could be assured that the siege was not the work of an organised terrorist group....