A man who was shot dead in Sydney’s southwest has been identified as the nephew of late gangster Mahmoud ‘Brownie’ Ahmad – who was gunned down weeks earlier.
Emergency services responded to reports of a shooting on Knox Street at Belmore just before 4am on Saturday.
Rami Iskander, 23, was treated by paramedics for gunshot wounds to his torso before he died at the scene.
He is understood to have been at home with his wife, who is pregnant with their second child, and their two-year-old. His wife was taken to Canterbury Hospital for a welfare check.
It marks the latest shooting in a spate of attacks that have claimed 12 other underworld figures – including Iskander’s uncle Ahmad – over the past 18 months.
Ahmad was fatally shot in Greenacre on April 27 after he had a $1million bounty placed on his head.
A man aged in his 20s has been shot dead with the attack believed to be linked to the fatal shooting of gangster Mahmoud ‘Brownie’ Ahmad
Police found a burned out car parked in a nearby suburb following the shooting on Saturday morning
Ahmad (pictured) was gunned down in Greenacre on April 27. He had a $1million bounty placed on his head
Police have closed down Knox Street and set up a crime scene.
Moments following the shooting emergency services were called to help a pregnant woman who went into labour and an elderly man who suffered a fall.
One neighbour said they were woken up by the sound of gunshots.
‘My wife said did you hear that? I think that was gunshots,’ he told Daily Telegraph.
Another neighbour said they heard ’10 gunshots’ before they saw a car speed away down the street.
A resident who is a nurse said they attempted to perform CPR on the 23-year-old man who had been shot.
Police found a burned out car parked in the nearby suburb of Croydon.
It is the second shooting in a week after Comanchero boss Tarek, 41, and his brother Omar Zahed, 39, were gunned down while leaving a BodyFit gym on Parramatta Road in Auburn, western Sydney, on Tuesday.
Tarek was shot up to 10 times and remains under police guard as he recovers in Westmead Hospital.
His brother Omar died at the scene and was laid to rest at Rookwood Cemetery.
Mourners, some wearing balaclavas, arrived at the gravesite and embraced Muslim friends and family of the slain man.
Among them was underworld identity, Ahmed Elomar, the brother of ISIS terrorist Mohamed Elomar.
Police have closed down Knox Street and set up a crime scene (pictured, officers and detectives at the scene early on Saturday morning)
Ahmad is one of 12 underworld figures to have been executed in the last 18 months
Takek Zahed (seated) and his brother Omar (standing) were gunned down outside a gym in Sydney’s west on Tuesday night
Elomar told Daily Mail Australia that Omar’s fatal shooting was evidence of the ‘shocking state of affairs for young Muslim men in Sydney’.
‘This generation is all over the place,’ he said.
‘What happened, who knows?’.
Mr Elomar said he had been a good friend of Omar who he had known in and out of jail.
A former champion boxer, Elomar served three years in prison for assaulting a policeman at the infamous 2021 pro-Islamic State riots in Hyde Park.
A mourner, who did not want to be identified, told Daily Mail Australia that Tarek was ‘out of a coma, but still not talking’.
Police are investigating whether the brazen gangland hit may have been an inside job sparked by an internal power struggle within the Comanchero.
The body of slain bikie associate Omar Zahed is carried from the back of a hearse to his grave at Rookwood Cemetery
Police had warned the brothers as recently as Thursday last week that their lives were at risk, however their advice went unheeded.
Homicide Squad Commander Detective Superintendent Danny Doherty said police are investigating possible motives for the assassination attempt, refusing to rule out the possibility of an inside job.
‘We can’t discount an internal conflict,’ he told reporters.
‘There is opportunities for people to take their place and there’s a real power struggle within organised crime organisations.’
NSW Police established a new strike force to investigate the shootings.