SYDNEY : A man (2nd L in blue jacket), surrounded by armed police, gestures towards a door where he had just ran out of, outside the Lindt cafe, where hostages are being held, in this still image taken from video from Australia’s Seven Network on December 15, 2014. An armed assailant was holding an unknown number of hostages in the central Sydney cafe on Monday, shutting down Australia’s largest city and raising fears it could be an attack by Islamist militant sympathisers. Six hours after the mid-morning siege began, television showed three hostages running out of the Lindt chocolate cafe and sheltering behind a heavily armed, black-clad SWAT team.