Timeline of Melbourne terror attack

THE MELBOURNE HOSTAGE SITUATION

MONDAY 4PM

* Police respond to a call about an explosion at an apartment building in Brighton

* They find a dead man in the foyer, he appears to have been shot

* They start trying to negotiate with a man inside an apartment, who was holding a woman against her will.

4.30PM

* Witnesses report "two big bangs" before cops back up behind their cars and clear the area.

5.41PM

* Seven Network Melbourne newsroom gets a call from a woman who says she's a hostage

* A man takes over the phone call to say "This is for IS, this is for al-Qaeda."

* Seven calls police to report the call.

6PM

* A gunman bursts out of the apartment and starts firing at police, injuring three of them

* Police fire back and kill him

* The woman is freed

* Two police officers are taken to hospital with gunshot wounds, a third is treated at the scene.

8PM

* Deputy Commissioner Andrew Crisp says police are investigating terrorism as one avenue of inquiry.

TUESDAY

* Police confirm they are treating the siege as a terrorist incident and that the gunman was linked to a plot to launch a suicide attack on Sydney's Holsworthy army barracks in 2009

* Gunman identified in media as Yacqub Khayre - a convicted burglar who was also acquitted over the Holsworthy plot.

Sources: Victoria Police, Seven Network, Nine Network, 3AW