Authorities believe that the gunman holding hostages at a cafe in central Sydney is a radical Iranian-born cleric, Sheik Man Haron Monis, who faces charges as an accessory to the murder of his ex-wife, Australian media reported.
Earlier this year, Haron was also charged with dozens of counts of sexual assault, allegedly carried out when he claimed to be a spiritual healer, curing women. Haron is due in court in February to answer the charges.
His identity was widely reported by Australian media early Tuesday, local time.
Police have not publicly confirmed the reports, but have said that they were in contact with the gunman, who has paralyzed the central business district of Australia's largest city and prompted the government to mobilize its terrorism task force.
New South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione told reporters that police negotiators are working to defuse the crisis, though he would not say whether they are talking to the gunman directly or through intermediaries.
"At this point, suffice to say that we have got contact with him," Scipione said.
"Our only goal tonight and for as long as this takes is to get those people that are currently caught in that building out of there safely," he said.
"Suffice to say that we have large numbers of police, they are in contact, and we are working to resolve this just as quickly as we possibly can," he added.
At this point, Scipione addressed the hostages directly: "Rest assured, we are doing all we can to set you free."
As night fell, one of the women still being held hostage turned the cafe lights off, local media reported.
Haron gained notoriety in Australia in recent years over a hate-mail campaign targeting the families of soldiers who died serving in Afghanistan, comparing their bodies to pigs.
He was charged and convicted for using the postal service to harass people. He appealed that conviction, claiming he was a peace activist whose rights to freedom of speech had been infringed.
His website bears a photograph of a dead woman and three children, all bleedling, with the words: "This is an evidence for the terrorism of America and its allies including Australia. This result of their air strikes."
Haron arrived in Australia in 1996 as a refugee, and if he is implicated in the crime, it may inflame local sentiment against refugees arriving by boat, a hot-button issue in Australia.
Police have refused to say how many captives were being held inside the Lindt Chocolat Cafe, though a local news station with a view through the window reported that it appeared to be as many as 15.
As the siege passed its seventh hour, five hostages went free -- three after 4 p.m. local time, and two more about 5 p.m. It was unclear whether they escaped or were released.
One of those freed was treated at a hospital, but that care was for a preexisting condition rather than for any injuries sustained during the hostage-taking, Scipione said.
"I understand that no one's been injured, and for that, if that is true, we are grateful," he said.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott confirmed late Monday that the gunman appeared to have "a political motivation," and local media reported that the gunman was trying to obtain an Islamic State flag in exchange for some of the hostages.
Two people inside the cafe had been seen pressed up against the window holding a black flag with Arabic writing early in the siege, which began about 9:45 a.m. local time. The flag appeared to say: "There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of God."
The gunman claimed to have planted four bombs, two inside the cafe, and two elsewhere in Sydney, local media reported. Authorities declined to "speculate" about reports of explosives.
"I can't speculate on what may or may not be, and that would be very unhelpful at the moment," Deputy Police Commissioner Catherine Burn said at an evening news conference. "At the moment we know that the person we are dealing with is armed."
She declined to call the incident a terrorist act. "We still don't know what the motivation might be," she said, adding that authorities "want to resolve this peacefully."
But authorities in New South Wales did call up the local counter-terrorism unit, Task Force Pioneer.
"This is really about setting up command and control," Burn said.
The cafe is located in the district of Sydney that includes courts, the Parliament of New South Wales state, the U.S. Consulate and the Reserve Bank of Australia.
Businesses and courts in the neighborhood were evacuated and closed for the day. Aside from the chop-chop sound of helicopters overhead, there was an eerie quiet, pierced with the sound of sirens. Surrounding streets were filled with police cars, ambulances and fire trucks.
The iconic Sydney Opera House, less than a mile away, also was evacuated.
The attack came the same day police filed terror charges against two men, one accused of terror financing. Both had been arrested in Australia's biggest series of terror raids in Sydney and Brisbane in September; one had been freed but was rearrested Monday. Police said there was no connection between the morning arrests and city siege, Fairfax media reported.
In the September raids, Australian authorities arrested a Sydney man who they said planned to seize a random passerby in Martin Place -- the same city location where Monday's attack took place -- behead the victim and drape the body in the Islamic State flag. At the time, Abbott told Australians that the beheading was planned within days of the raid.
The gunman is known to police, local media reported, but authorities have not confirmed any link between the gunman and any terror group. Abbott suggested that the attack was politically motivated, without indicating which political force was believed responsible.
A reporter for Channel 7, Chris Reason, said on Twitter that police had allowed him to return to the newsroom near the scene, which apparently gave him a view inside the cafe.
"Police have allowed me back into Martin Place newsroom -- gunman is clear -- white shirt, black cap, unshaven, holds poss pump action shotgun."
Reason continued, "We've counted around 15 hostages ... mix of women, men, young, old -- but no children." He also reported that the gunman was rotating the hostages, forcing them to stand against the windows for up to two hours at a time.
Most hostages likely were detained when they stopped for morning coffee.
One waiter at the cafe told local media that he had arrived at work minutes after the siege began to find the door locked.
"I saw a guy who looked like he was overseeing everything," the waiter, who gave his name only as Bruno, told Fairfax Media. "He was standing up while everyone else was sitting down. That's when the police came and everyone started putting their hands against the window. There was a whole lot of people in there."
Hours later, Bruno told The Times, "I would rather be in there with them than being out here and not knowing, you know."
A cafe customer who declined to give her name told reporters: "I literally walked up to the Lindt cafe to get my coffee, but for some reason I went somewhere else. It's hard to believe that this is happening in our own backyard."
As the day wore on, Australia's Network Ten Eyewitness News reported that two female hostages in the cafe had phoned the station and spoken of two bombs planted in the cafe and two other bombs elsewhere in downtown Sydney.
The women were "hysterical" and believed that their lives were in immediate danger, according to the network.
The hostages also conveyed the demands of the gunman, who called himself "The Brother," according to the network: to speak to Abbott and to have an Islamic State flag delivered to the cafe. In return for the flag, one hostage would be freed, they reportedly said.
The network said on Twitter that police listened in to the network's talks with the hostages, and "advised every step of the way."
The gunman contacted several other media outlets through hostages to make his demands known. Police said they were negotiating with the gunman and requested any media who were contacted to refer the call to police.
Network Ten Eyewitness News said it had also received a video from a hostage laying out the demands of the gunman, but declined to air it.
Australian Muslim leaders denounced the gunman. The Australian National Imam Council and Ibrahim Abu Mohamed, the nation's grand mufti, said in a statement that they "condemn this criminal attack unequivocally and reiterate that such actions are denounced in part and in whole in Islam."
A well-known radio broadcaster, Ray Hadley, said he had received a call about 1 p.m. from a hostage in the cafe.
Hadley said he could hear the gunman in the background, giving instructions to the hostage, a young man.
Hadley, from the popular 2GB talk-radio station, said the hostage-taker was talking about "other operatives," and spoke of a password.
"They talked about a password they would give me in 10 minutes. I have no idea what that means, what it's about," Hadley said on air shortly after the call. "I could hear the person in the background giving instructions to the young man I was talking to.
"The young man, remarkably, was quite calm, quite calm, and he was quite happy for us to have his phone number and said, 'I want you to ring me back in 10 minutes for further instructions from the man holding us hostage.'"
Hadley said the gunman wanted the hostage to deliver a message live on the radio, a demand Hadley rejected.
"I wouldn't allow that to happen. I told the hostage it would not be in his best interest or my best interest to allow that to happen because I'm not a trained negotiator, I don't have any expertise in this. There are people who will talk to both the hostages and the person holding the hostages and they will be knowing what to do," he said.
If the attack is confirmed to be a terror attack, it would be the first major terrorist incident on Australian soil since a bomb was planted in a rubbish bin outside Sydney's Hilton Hotel, where various world leaders were staying in 1978, killing two garbage men. The terror attacks that have killed more Australians than any other were the 2002 twin Bali bombings by violent Islamist militants, which killed 202 people including 88 Australians, 38 Indonesian, 27 Britons, seven Americans, six Swedes and three Danes.
Dozens of young Australians are reported to have left the country this past year to join the Islamic State and other terror groups, while authorities have canceled the passports of many other suspects.
Late Monday, a group describing itself as "Asawirtimedia" said on Twitter: "Who started the war? Do not weep now!" The tweet attached a photograph of the Australian flag and comments from Abbott as he announced that Australia had joined a coalition of forces against the Islamic State and was launching airstrikes in Iraq. The tweet highlighted Abbott's quote, "IS has effectively declared war on the world."
In October, Australia's government deployed six fighter jets to carry out strikes against Islamic State positions in Iraq.
There was no way to confirm whether the "Asawirtimedia" group had any relationship with the gunman in the cafe, however.
Another Twitter message from the group said: "Before that Australia is involved in the killing of our children, you are safe, but now it is different."
Late in the day, New South Wales Premier Michael Baird urged the public to carry on with their lives. "The police is being tested, the public is being tested, but whatever the test, we will face it head on, and we will remain a strong, democratic, civil society," he said.
James Brown, an Australian security and intelligence analyst, said the scenario "doesn't bear the characteristics of propaganda-style terrorist attacks."
"For a start there's no coordinated media campaign, no one has claimed responsibility yet, the message behind the attack isn't very clear, and there's been no violence other than the taking of hostages yet," said Brown, who is with the Lowy Institute think tank.
"This guy has had a lot of media attention and hasn't done anything. So it's unlikely that this is someone who has come in to Australia from a terrorist group, certainly the ones that I'm familiar with, and it's unlikely that this is someone who has had extensive training from a terrorist group."
As the hashtag #PrayforSydney spread, Sydneysiders expressed shock and horror at the attack.
"This is just horrifying #SydneyHostageCrisis now I know how Americans felt on 9/11," tweeted Paul Berriman from western Sydney.
"10hrs later and the siege continues! Like all of Sydney today, my thoughts are with the hostages," tweeted Jade Field.
"Just really, really want this #sydneysiege to be over. Those poor people," tweeted Troye Sivan.
Later, as recriminations against Islamic people surfaced on Twitter, the hashtag #IllRideWithYou went viral, as Sydneysiders offered lifts to Muslims concerned about facing a backlash as they found their way home.
"The Islamic community doesn't understand why he is using that flag for his act, and what brings him to commit such an action. We do not know what the answer is and what the motivation is," an Islamic leader in Sydney, Hamid Hadi, told The Times following a multi-faith vigil Monday evening.
"The word Islam literally means peace. The message of Islam is only of peace. Any violent action committed by any individual using Islam as their justification, is condemned."
Booth, a special correspondent, reported from Sydney and Dixon from Kenya. Staff writer Lauren Raab in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times6:48 a.m.: This article has been updated with reports about the identity of the gunman.
4:17 a.m.: This article has been updated with a quote from Islamic leader Hamid Hadi.
4:02 a.m.: This article has been updated with reports from the scene, hostage video and reactions from Australians.
2:32 a.m.: This article has been updated with information from latest police news conference.
12:33 a.m.: This article has been updated with witnesses' quotes and details from the scene.
12:17 a.m.: This article has been updated with reports from a local reporter who said he can see inside the cafe.
12:09 a.m. Monday: This article has been updated with information from a police news conference.
Dec. 15, 12:01 a.m.: This article has been updated with information from a police news conference Monday evening Sydney time.
11:47 p.m.: This article has been updated with Twitter messages from a group in support of the gunman.
11:34 p.m.: This article has been updated with the gunman demanding to meet with the prime minister, and with reports that he has planted four bombs.
10:56 p.m.: This article has updated with comments from a security analyst.
10:48 p.m.: This article has been updated with radio host getting a call from a hostage about 1 p.m. Sydney time.
10:32 p.m.: This article has been updated with comments from a waiter who works at the cafe.
10:05 p.m.: This article has been updated with reports of two more captives going free.
9:59 p.m.: This article has been updated throughout with additional details and background.
9:17 p.m.: This article has been updated to add a statement from Muslim leaders.
9:01 p.m.: This article has been updated to add reports that three captives have left the cafe.
8:03 p.m.: This article has been updated to add information about ride-sharing service Uber.
7:57 p.m.: This article has been updated to add information about a September counter-terrorism operation in Australia.
7:18 p.m.: This article has been updated to add comments by New South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione.
6:29 p.m.: This article has been updated to add comments by Zain Ali of the University of Auckland.
6:05 p.m.: This article has been updated to add comments by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
5:37 p.m.: This article has been updated to add statements by New South Wales state police.
5:02 p.m.: This article has been updated to add statements by the prime minister and Mike Baird, the premier of New South Wales.
This article was originally published at 4:41 p.m. on Dec. 14.
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