Mahmoud ‘Brownie’ Ahmad a ‘reserve grade player’ in Sydney crime gangs war

Slain gangster Mahmoud ‘Brownie’ Ahmad has been described as a reserve grade player in Sydney’s vicious underworld wars, as criminal clans and gangs forge alliances.

Slain gangster Mahmoud “Brownie” Ahmad was a reserve grade player in Sydney’s vicious underworld wars, as criminal clans and gangs forge alliances and pick a team to support.

Ahmad died in a hail of bullets in Greenacre on Wednesday night after spending months extorting underworld figures and ignoring police warnings a million dollar bounty was on his head.

Police sources say the Ahmad clan had recently teamed up with the Hamzy family in the Hamzys’ long-running feud with the Alameddine crime network in southwest Sydney.

One target of Ahmad’s extortion in recent months was wealthy businessman Omar Elomar.

A police source suggested the feud between Elomar and the Ahmads was playing out “like the reserve grade of the Hamzys and Alameddines”. Elomar isn’t ­accused of any involvement in criminal activity or any involvement in Brownie’s death.

Mahmoud ‘Brownie’ Ahmad and police at the scene of his shooting.

Another senior officer said the Hamzys “need all the help they can get”, after seeing five of their family gunned down and others thrown in jail.

Street gang KVT, consisting of young Fijian Australians from the western suburbs, also joined up with the Alameddine network, in a war that has seen battle lines drawn across southwestern and western Sydney.

Despite police getting a foothold to stop the bloodshed in ­recent months, the dividing lines between the Hamzys and Alameddines remain strong.

The Sunday Telegraph revealed last month one of the first sparks in the feud of the families came in the late 1990s when Bassam Hamzy’s older sister married an Alameddine.

So high were the tensions at the time that most members of the Hamzy family refused to attend the wedding, and patriarch Khalid Hamzy cut off communication with his relatives from jail over it.

The Ahmads were reportedly being led by Mahmoud, with his older brothers Walid and Ahmad “Rock” Ahmad dead and in jail.

Mahmoud’s younger brother Youssef was also told of a price on his head after the family’s run-ins with other crime figures in recent months.

Mahmoud Ahmad returned to Australia only recently but was warned in August last year of the $1 million bounty on his head.

A police source said Brownie needed “quick cash” to fund ­another getaway overseas.

The most notable enemies of the Ahmads, the Elmir family, are understood to have backed off in their long-running war in recent years and aren’t accused of any ­involvement in Brownie’s death. That feud saw four people killed at the height of their conflict, including Mahmoud’s older brother Walid “Mr Big” Ahmad.

But those tensions appeared to have cooled, with Steven Elmir and Mahmoud’s brother Ahmad “Rock” Ahmad both part of a ­failed drug plot with Michael Ibrahim.

Both men are now doing long stints in prison.