Australian PM lays flowers at site of Sydney café siege

Mr Abbott also wrote a message and waved at the crowd but did not address them.

Hundreds of people have been leaving flowers at the memorial.

Seventeen people were held hostage at the Lindt Chocolat Cafe yesterday.

The siege ended 16 hours later in a barrage of shots that left two hostages and Iranian-born gunman Man Horan Monis, 50, dead, and a nation that has long prided itself on its peace rocked to its core.

As the stand-off that started at around 9.45 am stretched through the day into nightfall with no apparent solution in sight, police stormed the cafe at about 2am when they heard gunfire inside, said New South Wales Police commissioner Andrew Scipione.

"They made the call because they believed that at that time, if they didn't enter, there would have been many more lives lost," he said.

A loud bang rang out, several hostages ran from the building and police swooped in amid heavy gunfire, shouts and flashes. A police bomb disposal robot also was sent into the building, but no explosives were found.

Monis had "a long history of violent crime, infatuation with extremism and mental instability", Mr Abbott said.

Australian Muslim groups condemned the hostage-taking in a joint statement and said the inscription of the Islamic flag displayed by Monis was a "testimony of faith that has been misappropriated by misguided individuals".

Many Australians offered on Twitter to accompany people dressed in Muslim clothes who were afraid of a backlash against the country's tiny Muslim minority of some 500,000 people in a nation of 24 million. The hashtag #IllRideWithYou was used more than 90,000 times by yesterday.

After a day of intense drama, a host of questions remained: Why was the gunman, a self-styled Muslim cleric with a sordid criminal history, let out on bail and how did he get hold of a shotgun in a country that bans gun sales?

The siege heightened fears of a terror attack, but it also produced heart-rending displays of solidarity among Australians who reached out to their Muslim compatriots.

"I'll never forget this day as long as I live," said Jenny Borovina, who was in tears with two friends carrying white flowers to the site. The effect of the stand-off would leave a permanent scar on Australia's psyche, she predicted, saying: "Our laid-back nature has just changed."

Like so many who work in the area, Ms Borovina said she was locked down in her office near the cafe for more than four hours before police gave her the all-clear to leave.

During that time, she said, she called her son to say take care. She also called her aunt, asking her to look after her son if she did not make it out alive.

"Australia was a really safe place before," said Andrea Wang, who laid a bouquet of lilies at the site, near her office.

"I hope our country gets through this very quickly," she said, adding that her family from China had been calling. "They worry about me in this country."

National flags were lowered to half-mast on the landmark Harbour Bridge as Australians awakened to the surreal conclusion of the crisis. The state's premier Mike Baird expressed disbelief that the attack could happen in Australia - a place he dubbed "a peaceful, harmonious society which is the envy of the world".

Mr Abbott said Monis was "a deeply disturbed individual' known to police but was not on a terror watchlist.

Monis "certainly had been well known to the Australian Federal Police ... but I don't believe that he was on a terror watch list at this time," he said.

"There is nothing more Australian than dropping in at the local cafe for a morning coffee," Mr Abbott said.

"And it's tragic beyond words that people going about their everyday business should have been caught up in such a horrific incident."