AUSTRALIA - Police brace for 'bikie showdown'

OFF THE WIRE
Jessica Grewal
frasercoastchronicle.com.au
AT LEAST 100 extra police officers will join strike forces across Sydney this weekend in anticipation of what is believed to be an imminent showdown between rival bikie gangs.
Nightly shootings have seen the conflict between members of the Nomads and Hells Angels outlaw clubs escalate.
However, Thursday night's events, which saw the home rented by high-ranking Nomads member Sam Ibrahim showered with bullets, were tipped to have fuelled tempers in both camps.
The brother of King's Cross nightclub icon John Ibrahim did not come out of the home to address the media on Friday.
On the same night a police paddy wagon was torched outside a tattoo shop in Newtown.
At a Rouse Hill address, an innocent woman and her son were home when bullets were fired through their windows.
The house is believed to have been previously occupied by a gang associate.
Detectives attached to Strike Force Kinnarra, which was formed in response to the recent targeted shootings, will investigate all three incidents.
They will be joined by the extra officers this weekend to patrol the city and, in particular, the western suburbs.
The state's Assistant Police Commissioner Nick Kaldas told the media yesterday officers were preparing for reprisal attacks.
He said additional police would be out in force as part of a "focussed effort" to minimise the fallout from what was now being widely labelled a "gangland war".
Police have been targeting bikie associates individually in an attempt to keep as many off the streets as possible.
On Wednesday, April 11, officers executed six simultaneous search warrants at the homes of Hells Angels members and associates in Wentworthville, Emu Plains, Macquarie Fields, Ryde, Smithfield and the Sydney CBD.
Firearms, fireworks, prohibited drugs, steroids and chemicals used in drug manufacture were seized during the warrants and several people were investigated.
On Thursday, a 26-year-old Emu Plains man was arrested and charged with possession of a handgun.
The charge relates to the seizure during the raids of a .32 calibre pistol which police believe was used during a brawl involving 50 Hells Angels members in Kings Cross earlier this year.
The man was granted bail in the Parramatta Local Court on Thursday afternoon and will appear again on May 31.