BY: Nick O'Malley, Nick Ralston
smh.com.au
Families are being forced to move out as drive-by attacks create neighbourhoods of fear, write Nick O'Malley and Nick Ralston.
The family had fled Afghanistan through Iran five years ago and built a new life in Sydney. Asieh had finished school at St Marys and done well. She was studying for a medical science exam when, about 10 o'clock on June 30, the gunshots broke the night.
It wasn't the first time.
Shots had been fired in Price Street, Merrylands, in May. When the Herald visited this week, a ''for rent'' sign was on the wooden fence at the front of Asieh's house. Furniture was on the lawn awaiting removal.
''You don't expect it to happen in a country like this,'' she said.
Next door, her neighbour, a short woman aged 68 with a worn and friendly face, was watering her olive trees.
She wouldn't be named or photographed either. She seemed resigned to violence in the street.
''I've been here 50 years, I raised my boys here, I'm close to my church, I don't want to go. I don't know what to do.''
She pointed across the road to a new two-storey home.
''Look there, a nice family, two kids, they just built their house and they want to sell it, but no one will buy.''
At night she rolls steel shutters over her front windows.
''I know the bullets can come through but it feels better.''
She is looking forward to summer, when it stays light longer.
People on Price Street are reluctant to use names, but they know why their street is being shot up. Their neighbour is Wahiba Ibrahim, the matriarch of the Ibrahim family, which has been the target in a series of shootings across Sydney over the past 15 months.
The Ryde home of her daughter, Armani Stelio, was peppered in a drive-by attack in November and two months later there was a shooting outside Wahiba Ibrahim's Merrylands home.
The shootings followed a series of tattoo parlour attacks, drive-by shootings and brawls that were believed to be related to a feud between the gang Notorious, which is associated with the Ibrahim family, and the Comanchero Motorcycle Club. But police believe some of the recent drive-by shootings were carried out by members of the Hells Angels.
Asieh and her parents don't care who is pulling the trigger.
Ten minutes away at Greenacre a mower roars at the back of a fibro house while a tired-looking woman wearing an apron and holding a Barbie doll politely but firmly asks to be left alone.
Last Monday night about a dozen shots were fired back
and forth between a pair of cars out the front.
A police media release described the two bullets that slammed into the family home as ''stray''. Little comfort.
Across the road, two doors down live another couple. She is 89, he is 91. They are happy to talk, but will not be named.
They were in their living room when the gunfire started.
''I thought it was firecrackers, but he said it was guns,'' she says, pointing to her husband, who was about to head off to the shops. Police have since arrested three people.
Drive-by shootings were not a part of Sydney's crime culture until the late 1990s, says the former assistant NSW police commissioner Clive Small.
He says they are a tactic often used by Middle Eastern crime gangs, whose members often come from cultures where gun ownership and use is far more common than in Australia.
There were 60 drive-by shootings in Sydney last year, and 70 in 2009. But some local government areas have been suffering disproportionately.
Since 2007 there have been 29 in Bankstown, 43 in Fairfield and 24 in Auburn.
Each time a thug in a car opens fire they not only spread fear through a community, they put innocent lives at risk, Small says.
Bob Knight, 66, was driving his truck past a KFC car park on Milperra Road when a shootout erupted between rival gangs in June 2009.
He was hit in the head by a ''stray'' bullet and died in his truck cabin.
Arrests tend to slow the number of shootings, Small says, but gangs fill vacuums and the shooting soon breaks out again.
He believes public gun play is a sign of an immature criminal.
''Sadly, it is only going to go away when they get more professional at their business.''
The family had fled Afghanistan through Iran five years ago and built a new life in Sydney. Asieh had finished school at St Marys and done well. She was studying for a medical science exam when, about 10 o'clock on June 30, the gunshots broke the night.
It wasn't the first time.
Shots had been fired in Price Street, Merrylands, in May. When the Herald visited this week, a ''for rent'' sign was on the wooden fence at the front of Asieh's house. Furniture was on the lawn awaiting removal.
Advertisement: Story continues below
Asieh wouldn't be photographed, nor did she want her full name published.''You don't expect it to happen in a country like this,'' she said.
Next door, her neighbour, a short woman aged 68 with a worn and friendly face, was watering her olive trees.
She wouldn't be named or photographed either. She seemed resigned to violence in the street.
''I've been here 50 years, I raised my boys here, I'm close to my church, I don't want to go. I don't know what to do.''
She pointed across the road to a new two-storey home.
''Look there, a nice family, two kids, they just built their house and they want to sell it, but no one will buy.''
At night she rolls steel shutters over her front windows.
''I know the bullets can come through but it feels better.''
She is looking forward to summer, when it stays light longer.
People on Price Street are reluctant to use names, but they know why their street is being shot up. Their neighbour is Wahiba Ibrahim, the matriarch of the Ibrahim family, which has been the target in a series of shootings across Sydney over the past 15 months.
The Ryde home of her daughter, Armani Stelio, was peppered in a drive-by attack in November and two months later there was a shooting outside Wahiba Ibrahim's Merrylands home.
The shootings followed a series of tattoo parlour attacks, drive-by shootings and brawls that were believed to be related to a feud between the gang Notorious, which is associated with the Ibrahim family, and the Comanchero Motorcycle Club. But police believe some of the recent drive-by shootings were carried out by members of the Hells Angels.
Asieh and her parents don't care who is pulling the trigger.
Ten minutes away at Greenacre a mower roars at the back of a fibro house while a tired-looking woman wearing an apron and holding a Barbie doll politely but firmly asks to be left alone.
Last Monday night about a dozen shots were fired back
and forth between a pair of cars out the front.
A police media release described the two bullets that slammed into the family home as ''stray''. Little comfort.
Across the road, two doors down live another couple. She is 89, he is 91. They are happy to talk, but will not be named.
They were in their living room when the gunfire started.
''I thought it was firecrackers, but he said it was guns,'' she says, pointing to her husband, who was about to head off to the shops. Police have since arrested three people.
Drive-by shootings were not a part of Sydney's crime culture until the late 1990s, says the former assistant NSW police commissioner Clive Small.
He says they are a tactic often used by Middle Eastern crime gangs, whose members often come from cultures where gun ownership and use is far more common than in Australia.
There were 60 drive-by shootings in Sydney last year, and 70 in 2009. But some local government areas have been suffering disproportionately.
Since 2007 there have been 29 in Bankstown, 43 in Fairfield and 24 in Auburn.
Each time a thug in a car opens fire they not only spread fear through a community, they put innocent lives at risk, Small says.
Bob Knight, 66, was driving his truck past a KFC car park on Milperra Road when a shootout erupted between rival gangs in June 2009.
He was hit in the head by a ''stray'' bullet and died in his truck cabin.
Arrests tend to slow the number of shootings, Small says, but gangs fill vacuums and the shooting soon breaks out again.
He believes public gun play is a sign of an immature criminal.
''Sadly, it is only going to go away when they get more professional at their business.''
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/shootings-turn-quiet-streets-into-a-war-zone-20110902-1jq2f.html#ixzz1Wth1OWTw
