m ago
08:12
Guardian Middle East correspondent, Martin Chulov, has written some analysis of the siege. It is the sum of all Australian fears over terrorism, he says:
There is another small and ill-defined number of citizens in the mix [of threats to Australia] – those who have developed grievances over the past decade and are willing to hitch themselves to a terror group’s cause to settle personal scores. The Martin Place gunman, Man Haron Monis, appears to fit this category. The self-proclaimed cleric was on bail facing dozens of charges of indecent and sexual assault, all of which he denied, and has also been accused of being an accessory to the killing of his ex-wife – run-ins with the justice system that he resented.
To many Australians, regardless of the suspect’s motivations, the siege was the sum of all fears – an event that has moved from being considered fanciful in the post-9/11 days to almost inevitable just over a decade later. More Australians per capita than almost any other nationality have travelled to join Isis and Jabhat al-Nusra, a statistic that disturbs the government and preoccupies the intelligence community.