Australia in Mourning for Victims of Deadly Siege

There is grief and sadness across Australia Tuesday after a violent end to a 16-hour standoff that claimed the lives of the gunman and two of his hostages.

Mountains of flowers blanket the pavement at Martin Place, where the deadly siege began.

On Monday, a gunman identified as 50-year-old Man Haron Monis burst into the Lindt Chocolat Cafe in Sydney and took 17 people inside captive.

Monis was an Iranian-born, self-proclaimed Islamic sheik with a long history of violent crime, including the murder of his wife and 22 counts of aggravated sexual assault.

He also had a history of extreme acts such as sending grossly offensive letters to the families of Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan.

Monday's rescue of the hostages unfolded in front of TV cameras Monday, when police stormed the cafe at around 2 a.m. after hearing gunfire inside.

"They made the call because they believed that at that time, that if they didn't enter, there would have been many more lives lost," New South Wales state police Commissioner Andrew Scipione explained.

The two hostages killed in the melee have been identified as Katrina Dawson, a 38-year-old attorney, and Tori Johnson, the 34-year-old manager of the cafe who witnesses say died trying to disarm the gunman.

"Our hearts go out to the families of Katrina Dawson and Tori Johnson," Prime Minister Tony Abbott said. "These were decent ordinary people who were going about their ordinary lives - decent, innocent people who were caught up in the sick fantasy of a deeply disturbed individual."

During the siege Monis ordered the hostages to fly a black jihadi flag in the window. CBN News Terrorism Analyst Erick Stakelbeck speculated that Monis may have been influenced by ISIS.

"He apparently asked for an ISIS flag, that black Islamic State flag that we've seen flown throughout Syria and Iraq," Stakelbeck said. "And also there are some reports, not confirmed yet, that he may have pledged allegiance to ISIS online."

Stakelbeck said some 150 Aussies have traveled to Syria to join ISIS in recent years and that Sydney illustrates the rising danger of lone-wolf terrorism. Fear has been rising throughout Australia and the West since the rise of ISIS.

"This is the new face of terror," Stakelbeck said. "Of course the jihadists are planning the next 9/11 diligently, but in the meantime the self-starter, low-tech attacks, lone wolf, you kind of turn yourself into a one-man jihad."

"It started with Fort Hood a few years ago, and now we've seen a pattern over the past few months with the emergence of ISIS," he continued. "ISIS has encouraged it's supporters, its sympathizers throughout the Western world to raise up and turn themself into the one-man jihad."

In September, Australian counterterrorism forces detained 15 people in a series of raids after receiving intelligence that ISIS was planning public beheadings in two Australian cities.

Also in September, Canadian authorities confirmed the Islamic gunman who attacked parliament and killed a soldier was motivated by his ideology.

Michael Zehaf-Bibeau made a video of himself just before his rampage. Canadian media report he praised Allah in the video, and complained about Canada's foreign policy.

There are also radical Muslims in the United States -- one beheaded a co-worker in Oklahoma and another attacked a New York police officer with a hatchet.

While it's unclear how many of these cases involve Muslims with mental illness, they are all examples of lone wolf terrorism that involve undeniable Islamic ideology.