stuart cohen is a freelance journalist based in sydney. he's been reporting the story for npr. time ago via skype. >> woodruff: stuart cohen, thank you for talking with us. first of all, what more can you tell us about this incident and about the ending of t the way police stormed it this cafe at the very end? >> well, it was very much a real surpriseç ending to to this whole siege. it all happened in the middle of the night when it was looking like things had quieted down for the night. police were just sort of standing around holding their ground and kind of at the 1:00 in the morning, police released the name of the hostage-takerç, haron monis, and then that was a bit of a sur pris there because they were keeping that name under tight wrapped. and then just before 2:00 in the morning, there was a scattering of hostages that suddenly made a break for-- came running out of the building. and then within 30 seconds to a minute, that's when the chaos began, several grenades were thrown, gunshots were fired and the police stormed the cafe. all very unexpected in the middle of th

joining me by phone in sydney, australia, is stuart cohen.an you confirm if some of the people inside have died and who they were? >> reporter: well at this point, heather, police are not obviously confirming. these are multiple media outlets reporting that a couple of people have died. reportedly the hostage-taker, man haron monis is one of the people dead. there are no names released and no official con firmmation from police. obviously in pictures from the siege, several people were being, seen being carried from the scene either on stretchers or in the harms of police and ambulance workers. at this point hard to say who the fatalities are until we get confirmation from police. just still speculation at this point. heather: stuart, overnight, it was reported that the hostage-taker claimed he had planted bombs. apparently one he claimed in that cafe and possibly one in another part of town. do we know anything about the status of that? if that was in fact even true? >> reporter: well, police again were very tight-lipped all throughout the d