Bitter rivalry fuels ongoing civil war between southwest Sydney’s Assyrian Kings and rivals

TWO years ago, senior police said they had dismantled the notorious Assyrian Kings gang — but now the group has been linked to a new wave of violence.

• Gangs’ civil war hits Sydney’s southwest

Two years ago senior police declared the infamous Assyrian Kings were effectively finished — smashed after a series of high-profile raids and arrests.

But now the southwest Sydney group has been linked to a string of drive-by shootings and firebombings believed to be the result of a civil war with a younger splinter group known as the True Kings.

A house fire in Edensor Park last Tuesday is believed to be the latest episode of resurgent hostilities between the groups.

Since the 1990s The Assyrian Kings — or Dlasthr (The Last Hour) — gained a brutal reputation in Sydney’s south west.

In late 2002 Dimitri Debaz was gunned down at a strip club in Sefton, with the shooting linked by police to the gang. Dlasthr leader Raymon Youmaran was is behind bars over the shooting, jailed in 2008 for at least 13 years.

Police swoop on alleged gang members.

Most shockingly, the Assyrian Kings were held responsible for the savage murder of young police officer David Carty in Fairfield in 1997.

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The 25-year-old Constable was stabbed in the heart and stomped on in the carpark of the Cambridge Tavern in Fairfield after coming off a late shift. His nose and ears were also slashed during the attack and the young police officer was partially scalped.

David Carty who was stabbed to death while still partly in uniform.

A coronial inquest also implicated the gang in the drive-by shootings of Naser Ghaderi and Keyvan Ghajaloo in The Rocks in 2005.

The pair had been standing on the corner of Hickson Rd, when a car pulled up. The vehicle’s driver asked “Are you the Persians from the party? and a hail of bullets followed.

Both men died at the scene — apparently killed as part of a feud stemming from a recent party — and no one has ever been charged.

Later the same year, a cafe frequented by Fairfield’s Assyrian community was shot up and an innocent bystander was killed. The shooting followed a string of tit-fot-tat shootings across Fairfield linked to DLASTHR and its rivals.

Raymon Youmaran.

Dimitri Debaz was shot dead outside the Sefton Hotel at Sefton in what police believe was a turf war.

The gang was formed out of northern Iraqi refugees who fled the Middle East in the wake of the first Gulf War in 1990 and set up in Sydney’s south west.

Many members sport plenty of ink, including a distinctive clenched fist on their back.

NSW police have actively pursued the gang for years, conducting numerous operations that have netted weapons and drugs.

In 2014 senior police said the gang had effectively been dismantled after a string of raids, which saw 15 members arrested and charged with a range of offences.