Josh Hanrahan: Taha Sabbagh the first gangland killing in six months

Thursday’s gym shooting was horrific, but it was also the first murder with links to organised crime on Sydney’s streets in more than six months, writes Josh Hanrahan.

NSW Police are winning the bloodiest gang war in this state’s history and Thursday’s murder does little to change that.

Taha Sabbagh was shot dead as he pulled up outside a Sefton gym with his 12-year-old son next to him.

The state’s top homicide cop Detective Superintendent Danny Doherty called it “sickening … egregious (and) violent” at a press conference in the hours after the shooting.

It is all those things.

But it is also the first murder with links to organised crime on Sydney’s streets in more than six months.

Sefton gym shooting victim Taha Sabbagh. Picture: Instagram

Considering where things were at in the war that has claimed 15 lives since late-2020, that is remarkable.

At one point, when there had not been a shooting for six weeks, we would say “it’s about that time again”.

Almost like clockwork, another shooting would soon happen — sometimes within days.

Police were on the back foot, but as Detective Superintendent Doherty addressed the media on Thursday, he could finally speak of how the shootings have dried up.

“The last shooting we’ve had that had an organised crime link was over six months ago,” he said.

“The number of shootings and murders have come down quite dramatically.”

While they have been reluctant to jinx themselves by talking publicly, privately senior police have for some months been rapt with how significantly they have reduced shootings and murders.

Much of their success is down to how diligently they have targeted those involved in big underworld crime.

The culmination of Strike Force Sugarcane in mid-2022 saw almost two dozen people with alleged links to the notorious Alameddine crime clan arrested.

They were charged and put before the courts, but most importantly they were taken off the streets.

Around that same time the initiation of Taskforce Erebus saw the arrests of several individuals with alleged involvement in the murders that have shocked Sydney.

The efforts of police to get on top in the gang war is why some of the biggest names in the underworld have since decided to leave NSW and live overseas, and why the killers of Taha Sabbagh will be sleeping uneasily.

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