Last photo of slain gangsters Mahmoud ‘Brownie’ Ahmad and nephew Rami Iskander at Sydney restaurant

Crime kingpin Mahmoud ‘Brownie’ Ahmad was seen smiling alongside his favourite nephew, fellow gangster Rami Iskander, while out to dinner just months before both men were shot dead.

The pair appeared relaxed as they sat elbow-to-elbow posing for a photo at a restaurant in Sydney earlier this year. 

In the picture, which has been exclusively obtained by Daily Mail Australia, the men looked as if they had not a care in the world.

But in truth, the seemingly cheerful dinner had a chilling undercurrent in play, with Ahmad having been released from prison last November to warnings by anti-gang squad police that he was in grave danger of being killed. 

Within months of the happy snap being taken both would be killed in execution-style murders just 17 days apart in what is believed to be a bloody gang drug war gripping southwestern Sydney.

Underworld ‘Mr Big’ Ahmad, 39, was gunned down in Greenacre outside a home on Narelle Crescent in April. 

Iskander, 23, was shot in front of his pregnant wife and two-year-old child last Saturday morning, just five days after two brothers were felled in a hail of bullets at a Sydney gym, with his murder forcing NSW Police to form a ‘super taskforce’.

The bloody conflict has claimed 13 lives in 18 months, and the state opposition claims there have been at least 35 major violent incidents involving gangs in NSW since June 2020.

Iskander’s other uncle and Mahmoud’s brother was drug boss Walid ‘Wally’ Ahmad, who was gunned down in 2016 while sitting at a busy cafe at a Bankstown shopping mall. 

Brownie Ahmad had fled to Lebanon after killing gangland rival, Safwan Charbaji in 2016, and was arrested on his return, allegedly to see his newborn child, and pleaded guilty to manslaughter for which he served five years’ prison.

Released from jail after six months, Ahmad was warned by Anti-gang Strike Force Raptor that he was a ‘marked man’ and in imminent danger.

But as Homicide Squad Commander Detective Superintendent Danny Doherty later said, Ahmad ‘continued to associate with people of the criminal milieu and did not want to hide. His life was always in danger.’

The executions come as police are granted new powers to detain convicted drug dealers anytime anywhere, no warrant required.

The unprecedented NSW laws also allow police to search them in the street, knock down their doors, as well as search their homes, businesses and vehicles.

The new legislation two years in the making will be piloted in four areas across NSW, including Bankstown in Sydney’s south-west as the city’s gangland war escalates.

The tough laws which came into effect this week allow police to apply to issue a Drug Supply Prohibition Order on anyone convicted of a ‘serious drug offence’ in the past decade.

The powers extend to officers in the Hunter Valley, the Orana district in the state’s central west and Coffs Harbour-Clarence command up north.

They will also be extended to Strike Force Raptor and Taskforce Erebus, a newly established strike force set up to coordinate investigations into the spate of fatal shootings involving rival organised crime gangs.

‘These unprecedented powers will allow police to detain convicted drug dealers, as well as search their homes, businesses and vehicles at any time without a warrant,’ Deputy Premier and Police Minister Paul Toole said.

‘The message to Sydney’s underworld couldn’t be clearer – police will be in your face more than ever, disrupting your lives every second of the day. These criminals will be so fed up of the knocks at the door, they will have to consider a new path and if not, they can expect to be locked up for a long time.’

Around 9pm on the evening of April 27, Ahmad was outside his Narelle Crescent,  Greenacre home, when multiple assassins lying in wait mowed him down in a hail of bullets.

Raptor Squad police patrolling nearby performed CPR with vision of the harrowing scene showing ‘Mr Big’ fighting for his life, but they were unable to revive him.

When his distraught family members arrived hours later, they were denied entry from the cordoned-off crime scene, sparking angry scenes with police.

Detectives described the killing as ‘a meticulous assassination’. 

Less than two weeks later, about 8pm on May 10, Comanchero bikie boss Tarek Zahed, 41, and his brother Omar, 39, were sprayed with bullets at the BodyFit gym on Parramatta Road in Auburn.

Omar died at the scene, with Tarek taken to hospital fighting for his life. He is now in a stable condition following surgery.

Omar was laid to rest at a funeral attended by bikies among 80 mostly Muslim mourners at Rookwood Cemetery, and observed by very large contingent of Raptor Squad, plain-clothed, uniformed and Highway Patrol police.

Less than 16 hours later, just before 4am on Saturday, Iskander was shot outside his Knox Street home in the suburb of Belmore. 

Gunmen opened fire, shooting him in the torso and fleeing the scene, leaving his heavily pregnant wife and and two-year-old child to make the horrific discovery.  

Relatives performed CPR on Iskander in a desperate attempt to revive him. Paramedics then arrived on scene and tried to treat his injuries before he died.

Police, now operating as part of the newly-formed Task Force Erebus, believe Iskander was targeted for one of three reasons.

The first theory is that Iskander could have been shot pre-emptively to stop him carrying out a revenge plot his uncle Ahmad’s April 27 shooting.

The second theory is that Iskander was targeted in retaliation for the shootings of Tarek and Omar Zahed.

The third theory is that Iskander disrespected a person’s wife or girlfriend and was shot in retaliation.  

State Crime Command Director detective chief superintendent Darren Bennett said police were dealing with a ‘spate of tit-for-tat shootings around organised criminals around southwest Sydney’. 

‘We’ve clearly got a war-of-sorts in south-western Sydney around drug supply and organised crime,’ he said.

Superintendent Bennett said Iskander was on a list of people under police surveillance.

‘We’ve got a list of people we focus on. This person who is now deceased, was part of that cabal,’ he said. 

‘He’s not a person that we have warned about being a target as we have with others. But he is certainly known to us as being involved in that milieu.’ 

One neighbour of Iskander’s 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 ‘ten 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. 

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Police found a burned out car parked in the nearby suburb of Croydon.

After Omar Zahed’s funeral, underworld identity, Ahmed Elomar, the brother of ISIS terrorist Mohamed Elomar told Daily Mail Australia the 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. 

Police had warned the brothers as recently as Thursday last week that their lives were at risk, however their advice went unheeded. 

Det. Supt Doherty said police were 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 are opportunities for people to take their place and there’s a real power struggle within organised crime organisations.’

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