Armed assailant wielding Islamic flag seizes Sydney cafe

Australian police locked down the center of the country's biggest city on Monday after an armed assailant walked into a downtown Sydney cafe, took hostages and forced them to display an Islamic flag, igniting fears of a jihadist attack.

Police said they knew of one armed assailant involved in the incident at the Lindt chocolate cafe in the heart of Sydney's financial district, but there could be more.

Australian police said negotiators had been in contact with the gunman holding hostages, but refused to speculate on his possible motivation.

At least five hostages have escaped since the mid-morning siege began. It was not clear how many more hostages remained in the cafe but it was not as high as the 30-40 that had been reported earlier, police said.

Police told reporters there was no indication that any of the remaining hostages had been harmed.

Police, including heavily armed paramilitary officers, cordoned off several blocks around the cafe as negotiators tried to defuse one of the biggest security scares in Australia for decades. Snipers and a SWAT team could be seen taking up positions around the cafe and police helicopters flew overhead.

Australia's Channel 10 Eyewitness News revealed the gunman's demands, as told by two hostages who escaped the building, on Twitter, but later deleted the tweets after police requested of other news outlets not to reveal them.The NSW Police Force's deputy police commissioner, Catherine Burn, said in a press briefing that the police were negotiating with the gunman, but would not reveal details of the conversation. She did say, however, that police were monitoring the alleged demands made on social media by hostages being held in the siege and that this "is forming a part of our tactical response in how to handle this."

Hostages seen inside Lindt Cafe in Sydney. Photo by AP

Burn said that while the police's priority is that the incident end peacefully, they are warned it could take some time.

She said that "the situation is contained in one area" and urged people to go about their business as normal in Sydney.

All Jewish schools and institutions were across the nation were put under lockdown, security forces said, adding that excursions have been canceled and tight security measures were put in place.