Breaking details on a manhunt outside philadelphia for a suspected gunman who apparently went on a housetohouse rampage and may not be finished. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the lead. Im jake tapper. Well begin with the world lead. A brazen act of terror in the heart of down toitown sydney ha officials on high alert in australia and right here in the u. S. Two hostages confirmed dead. A 34yearold man and a 38yearold woman with four others in the hospital. The gunman, an islamic extremist and criminal known to Law Enforcement was killed at the scene. At this very moment, investigators are scouring the crime scene, interviewing witnesses and poring over the digital footprint of the man who turned cafe workers and customers into captives in a busy retail hub in sydney, australias most populous city. Over the course of the 16hour standoff, we witnessed scenes such as this one, horrified hostages forced to hold up the black islamic flag. Five hostages managed to escape during the early hours of the ordeal with news cameras capturing them literally running for their lives. The siege finally came to an end when australian commandos stormed the cafe and a hail of gunfire erupted. And this new video shows the exact moment when the shooting started through the windows as the nonstop barrage of bullets exploded. This afternoon, police officially confirmed that the gunman, sheikh haron, was dead. He seems to have acted alone, at least based on the facts as they are known right now. There are clear signs that islamic extremism motivated his actions. Our affiliate is live in martin place where this all went down. Reporter jake, australians had been watching this tense situation all of yesterday with these hostages holed up in this cafe. Now they are waking up to the shocking news that the siege has ended but unfortunately not without the loss of life. We hear that the gunman has been killed but so have two innocent people. The front page of the local paper says it all, terror hits home, a shocking story here in australia, not something that people here are used to seeing. Lets take a look at how these events unfolded. Police storm a cafe in sydney, austral australia, filled with hostages held for nearly 17 hours. Stun grenades are thrown into the building. Gunfire erupts and the battle lasts for almost five minutes. Through the windows, flashes of gunfire and stun grenades exploding. In the midst of the chaos, hostages can be scene fleeing the cafe in groups. One man runs towards police with his hands in the air. An injured woman carried from the scene. When it is all over, paramedics rush in. At least three are dead, including the gunman. Two deceased amongst the hostages and six that were uninjured. We also have a lone gunman who has been shot and killed. And we have a Police Officer who has been injured as a result of a gunshot wound to the face. Reporter the gunman is an iranian native and selfproclaimed sheikh. He is well known to the police and is currently out on bail for a 2013 charge as an accessory to murder of his former wife. The siege started when the gunman walked into the chocolate cafe just before 10 00 a. M. Local and took 17 hostages, turning normally bustling city streets silent. During the standoff, some hostages were able to escape and run to safety. He had hostages hold a black flag in the cafe window and demanded an isis flag to replace it. Hands and faces pressed against the windows shocked australians. At one point, hostages were forced to Record Videos making demands for the gunman. A local radio host spoke directly with one of the hostages. They phoned my program. Obviously i department want to put them to air. So i took their calls off air and at the same time could hear the hostagetaker giving the young man who spoke to me instructions on what he wanted to do. Reporter the gunman splits the hostages into two groups on opposite sides of the room, according to australias 7 network. One group was able to escape running towards Police Officers. Moments go by and then a gunshot is heard from inside the cafe and a hostage goes down. Heavily armed Tactical Police stormed the building from two different directions. The gunman is shot and killed. There were at least nine people inside the building at the time. There was a number of gunshots that were heard which caused officers to move straight to what we call an Emergency Action plan. That caused them to enter. Reporter so the siege over, but still a number of questions to be answered. We know that this man was known to police that he had been convicted on charges of sending offensive letters to families who had suffered the loss of members of their families who had served in the armed forces in afghanistan. We also know he was bailed on a string of charges including Sexual Assault and accessory to murder. Why has it come to this . Why was this man who is known to police allowed to have it come to this point where he was holding up hostages throughout the day yesterday and this busy part of sydney and it ended up in the loss of life . Kathy, thank you so much. The section of sydney where the standoff took place is one that is usually bustling with shoppers and tourists and downtown workers, particularly at that time of day. So you can imagine what a challenge Law Enforcement officials must have faced particularly when they had no idea whether the sheikh was acting alone. Cnns tom foreman, tell us how it all went down. Here is sydney. If we move in closer for a more detailed map, you see the famous opera house, the u. S. Consulate not far away. Ive been to this area of this town at that time of time. Yes, it is absolutely full of people, teeming with people. Theres the consulate, the lindt store, the reserve bank of australia across the street. This is a tremendously busy area. But i want to bring up a detail of the place that he tried to take and point out why this was also a challenging environment for someone who wanted to do something terrible like this. Look at this building. The area he took over, yes, it had a ton of windows in which people could look in. This is the main entrance right there. Over there is the entrance to the building. There appears to be another entrance into the lindt shop here from the lobby. On the other side, if you come all the way around here, you can see toward the back those black doors near the back, thats yet another Service Entrance to this area. And there may be another one from above. These windows may be pushing close to 20 feet tall inside if you get to the roof inside. So maybe 2,500 square feet of area. All day long the question people have been asking is how is it possible that people were able to slip out of there . That is a lot of territory for one gunman to try to control a lot of people. It is also a big challenge for the Law Enforcement people when they tried to go in with the flash bangs because they had to look over a big area and figure out precisely where this person was, where the hostages were as they moved in from numerous entrances. We know they came in numerous places at once. We dont know how many overall. But at least two. And to try to overpower this man, big, big challenging environment for everyone involved. Tom, thank you so much. This deadly siege comes months after australias government warned about the rising threat of socalled lone wolf attacks given the fact that the suspected hostagetaker had a wellknown criminal history and openly displayed islamist extremist figures. Could anything have been done to stop him before he entered the cafe . Lets bring in Fran Townsend and robert mcfadden. Thank you both for being here. Fran, let me start with you, given what we know about this man, should he have been more closely monitored . Jake, i think we have to be realistic about the number of people that express these views. I used to say when i was in the white house, thatwhat i cared a were people trying to kill us as opposed to people who just hated us. You have limited resources and you have to use them very, very carefully. Its unlikely that this guy, as crazy as he was, as awful as he was and as horrific as this crime is, would have risen to the level of requiring police and investigative resources. The one thing i will say is he was writing these really offensive, horrible letters to the families of soldiers who fought in afghanistan. That might have raised the bar for this guy. But i have to tell you, there are a lot of people who express those sorts of views that dont get Law Enforcement attention and resources. This underscores how easy this kind of an event is for a lone wolf and why in u. S. Government is so concerned about it. Thats true. But there were criminal charges against him. Were still learning more. And well talk more about this in the days to come. But it wasnt only that he preached hatred. Hed actually sxhitcommitted ac violence. Thats true. But there was the attempt we believe hes been charged in a case in the attempted murder of his wife, Sexual Assault cases. But nothing as bad as those are, those arent the sorts of things that raise him on this sort of scope of counterterror forces. And i think thats the difference here. As bad as this guy was and as much attention of local Law Enforcement as he had, it wouldnt have necessarily brought him onto the screen of National Counterterrorism forces. Robert, how closely can we expect the u. S. To work with australia in this investigation . How much does australia need our help, for that matter . You can expect a very close working relationship. When an event like this kicks off, besides right next to the safety of the hostages and ending it successfully and safely is a deep dive, a fullcourt press to find out about his associates, you have to id him, his coworkers, family members, to try to determine or rule out that there are coconspirators of other plots afoot. So the australians have a terrific capability in that regard. But its always working with the closest allies. Farther down the road as were still in speculation, the australians are conducting investigations to rule out other plots, you can bet there will be a lot of information sharing and lessons learned. Obviously there have been successful homegrown terrorist attacks here, the tsarnaev brothers in boston, nidal hasan in texas. How likely that Something Like what happened in sydney could happen here in the United States . Its definitely within the realm of possibility. We have a unique era right now with the advent of social media and the way the Islamic State has used it, its so much more a part of our lives and presence of our lives through media and other sources. If you have an individual or small groups where they might be taking those constructive steps towards violence, theres a whole range of different motivations. It seems overwhelming right now. Its a bizarre form of islam. But there are others where far right wing extremism might be the Tipping Point to motivate an individual or small group to act out. Fran, whats the next step in the investigation . Theres no question theyre going to look to see if he had any other connections. Sources are telling us now that this does look like it was a lone wolf, that he was sort of selfradicalized. But they will cover every avenue to make sure he had no links to other extremists. He threatened there were three explosive devices in different places. I expect theyre looking to clear that and make sure that thats not accurate. Theres nothing that could harm civilians when they return to their normal lives today. And theyll see if theres any international links. Theyll look at his social media and work with other intelligence and Law Enforcement services to make sure he didnt have links into the Islamic State directly. Fran and robert, thank you both so much. Coming up, he was no stranger to police with a long list of charges from involvement in his exwifes murder to Sexual Assault and were now learning the sydney gunman railed against the u. S. Online posting what he claimed was evidence of american terrorism before this siege. Thats coming up next. Welcome back to the lead. Im jake tapper. We continue with our breaking news. The terrorist siege in sydney, australia. A gunman isis sympathizers and selfproclaimed cleric named Man Haron Monis took people hostage for more than 17 hours at a cafe popular with tourist and locals. Australian officials and police stormed the cafe at 2 00 a. M. Local time, killing the gunman. At least two hostages were also killed during the rescue attempted, four others wounded. What do australian and american officials know about the hostagetaker . Atika shubert has been digging into his background and joins me now live from london. Atika . Reporter this is a man with a very wrong rap sheet. He was even accused of being somehow involved with the murder of his former wife. And he was released on bail because the judge said he was not a threat to society. And of course that is now being called into question. Long before he walked into the sydney chocolate shop with a gun, 50yearold Man Haron Monis was wellknown to Australian Police. Various reports put his age at 49 or 50, originally from iran. He settled in australia, a selfdescribed muslim cleric. He converted from shia to sunni islam. In 2013, he was convicted of posting harassing letters to the families of australian soldiers killed in afghanistan. He was sentenced to 300 hours of community service. This pen is my gun. And these are my bullets. Reporter he became a fixture of sorts staging attentionseeking protests, chaining himself to a sydney court. His posterboard in this video claims he was tortured in jail. Police have refused to comment. He began posting online videos as sheikh haron, giving lectures on islamic law. Last year charged with accessory to the murder of his former wife. Most recently, he was charged with Sexual Assault dating from 2002 when he was operating as a spiritual healer outside sydney, both charges he denies. On his website and social media, monis pledged allegiance to isis but there is no indication so far that monis had any direct communication with isis leaders in syria or iraq. He had a number of twitter profiles, facebook pages, also a website, sheikhharon. Com. That has been shut down. But one of the last things he posted was this an open letter denying all the charges against him. Also claiming that he had been denied access to his children. It paints a picture of a man under increasing pressure from the law facing yet another court case in february. He also makes clear in this letter that he is not a member of, quote, any organization or party, suggesting that his decision to take hostages was his and his alone. In the days ahead, Australian Police will likely reveal more details after what happened and why this socalled man of peace turned to violence. One of the things, of course, investigators will be looking for is exactly the days that led up to this attack, what was the trigger moment that basically led him to walk into a chocolate shop armed with a gun. Those are questions that still remain to be answered. Atika shubert live in london, thank you so much. Australian officials had tried to negotiate the release of the hostages with the gunman before storming the cafe. Daniel o shea was a member of the Hostage Working Group in iraq from 2004 to 2006 and joins us live from tampa, florida. What do you think made them decide to launch the rescue attempt after 16 hours or so of the hostages being kept inside the cafe . Well, we dont know what happened that prompted the guys to start throwing in flash bangs. But i watched it live via the internet. There was a rush of hostages that came out suddenly and as that happened, it prompted you heard gunshots. And its been told that they breached from two entry points. That was probably a trigger. Going back to the negotiation phase of it, this guy may have already had in his mind that, im going to do the martyrs death. You call it in the states suicide by cop. That may have been his intention all along. He may have advised the onscene commander that this guy is going out one way and one way only. And when the hostages had the chance to escape, it prompted something that launched the mission to go in and rescue the surviving. Sadly enough, two of the hostages were killed in the process. For those just tuning in and seeing the imagine on the right side of your screen, we are awaiting remarks from the Prime Minister of australia, tony abbott, and well bring those to you live when he steps up to the podium. But i want to continue my conversation with daniel, former navy s. E. A. L. Member of the Hostage Working Group in iraq. At least two people were killed. We dont know who killed them. But in hostage situations like this, sometimes it happens that the rescuers accidentally kill hostages. I remember it happened as far back as the raid on antebi. Theres going to be secondguessing here. Must be a tough decision to storm the cafe. Its always the last option. To send in hostage rescue forces, its the most Difficult Mission that you can operate. It has to be surgical, precise and the challenge of it, as you saw, as these hostages were running out and the guys were trying to make an entry point, the safest things hostages can do in that environment is to get down. If you hear gunfire, you need to get down because these gentlemen, these special the s. W. A. T. Unit or the Australian Special forces, they have to make a splitsecond decision. And even then these guys are the best of the business in australia. So im confident that when things come out there wasnt the hollywood movie where bullets are flying crazy. These are surgical procedures in shooting. But even in that case, bullets can hit innocents. And it happens. Thats why to go to this level and to launch that mission, thats generally the last resort. Certainly its not something it looked like their hand was forced and they had to go with it. In that dynamic seconds, sometimes hostages get killed. Thats why this is