Melbourne siege: Recent cases of terrorism in Australia

Australian police said today that a shootout in Melbourne in which two men died, three police officers were wounded and a female hostage was freed was being treated as a terror attack.

Victoria state Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton said the gunman had been implicated in a thwarted suicide attack at a Sydney army barracks in 2009. "We are treating it as a terror attack," he added.

Instances of terrorism in Australia:

JUNE 5:
A man was shot dead in the foyer of a Brighton serviced apartment by a gunman, named in the media as Yacqub Khayre. He was holding a prostitute hostage before opening fire on police who shot him dead.

2016, SEPTEMBER 10:
Ihsas Khan, 22, was charged with committing a terrorist act and attempted murder after stabbing 57-year-old Wayne Greenhalgh several times at a park in Minto.

2015, OCTOBER 2:
Fifteen-year-old Farhad Jabar killed 58-year-old police accountant, Curtis Cheng, in a shooting outside the Parramatta police headquarter before he was shot dead by officers.

2014, DECEMBER 15:
Self-proclaimed Muslim sheikh, Man Haron Monis, took 17 people hostage inside Sydney's Lindt cafe. Hostages Tori Johnson and Katrina Dawson died while another four people, including a police officer, were injured.

SEPTEMBER 23:
Numan Haider, 18, stabbed two officers outside Endeavour Hills police station before he was shot dead.

2009, AUGUST:
Wissam Mahmoud Fattal, Saney Edow Aweys and Nayef El Sayed were jailed in 2011 for 18 years with a minimum of 13-and-a-half-years over a plot to kill as many people as possible in a mass shooting at Holsworthy Army base in south west Sydney.

- AAP, AP