began yesterday. so if we can bring in eric here. is there a fear of copy cat acts at this point? you know, knowing that australia has been part of the u.s. led coalition. should they be watching out for something like this to happen again? certainly this has been a concern for the nations contributing to the fight against isis in iraq and syria. there s been some 70 australians believed to have travel to the region to fight there. all the countries are expressing concerns you might have individuals who acted out at the urging of isis. isis in a website proclamation in september urged the followers whenever they may be, including in australia to lash out just as this individual did today. so whether he s actually connected to isis or not we may learn. but certainly by displaying the banner, by solidarity that flies with isis he grabs world
gunman or the hostages involved. let s talk about this as far as background here. we don t officially know the gunman s motive. we know there s growing concern in australia for months about the threat from islamic state militants. we want to run the time line down for you. officials blamed an australian there. and in september 18th australia conducts the biggest counter terrorism raid. linked to an alleged plot by australians to kill a random member of the public. in october australia approves air strikes again the islamic state. 11 days ago the countries banned citizens to traveling to syria. and the hostage situation that
facilitated this. he was apparently on bail according to some local media reports. all of these will factor in the coming hours. and how can we put into play this the fact in the 17 hours he would force the hostages to hold up these stand in the window and hold the black taflag. in some cases a woman for two hours. reading there is no god but allah and mohamed is god. equivalent to the lord s prayer in christianity. what is his intention? it s commonly used by militant groups in many conflict zones in identificatiafghanista syria. it s more of a symbol. it doesn t have any political message but the sill bosymbolis of it. according to what we re hearing from some of the local reports some of the political demands