Alameddines planned Rushcutters Bay park hit on Mahmoud ‘Brownie’ Ahmad

A busy eastern suburbs park came perilously close to becoming the latest bloody crime scene as part of the underworld gang violence gripping Sydney.

An eastern suburbs park filled with families was set to be the location of a daylight underworld hit at the hands of the Alameddine crime clan, until the intended target got a call warning him of the imminent danger.

Having avoided that attempt, major gangland figure and convicted killer Mahmoud “Brownie” Ahmad has since left Australia.

In the wake of his overseas trip The Daily Telegraph can now reveal shocking ­details of the plan to gun down Ahmad while playing with his children at Rushcutters Bay Park in early October.

Mahmoud "Brownie" Ahmad, brother of Wally Ahmad who was murdered in Condell Park.

Gunmen are understood to have been planning to carry out the hit until an associate called Ahmad and warned him of the danger.

Sources say the park would have been packed with families who just weeks out of lockdown were making the most of a weekend visit to the playground overlooking Sydney Harbour.

The dangers to innocent bystanders, including young children, were seemingly ­irrelevant to the hit men ­intent on collecting the ­bounty on Ahmad’s head.

The hit was set to take place in popular Rushcutters Bay Park. Picture: Joel Carrett

The city’s underworld had been rife with talk in the wake of Ahmad’s release from ­prison, where he served seven years for killing a fellow criminal in 2016, that the ­Alameddines had put a ­bounty worth as much as $1 million on his head.

The attempted hit on Ahmad came weeks prior to the double murder of  teenage gangster Salim Hamze, 18, and his father Toufik, 64.  As scrutiny mounted on police in the wake of the Hamzes deaths, senior cops were asked if they were doing enough.

“The activities of police thus far have diverted four other murders from occurring and at least one other kidnapping,” NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Stuart Smith said in response.

NSW Police would not comment on whether the failed hit on Ahmad was among these.

Ahmad initially surrounded himself with a small crew of allies and enforcers to protect him after his release from prison, with the experienced gangster reading the temperature of the room that is Sydney’s current underworld.

Ahmad is currently believed to be in the Middle East — but underworld sources said they thought the trip was only a temporary break.

Ghassan Amoun, who was gunned down last week.

Bilal Hamze has also been slain during the ongoing gang war between the Alameddine and Hamzy clans.

Ahmad’s decision to leave Australia proved timely with the ongoing feud between the Alameddine and Hamzy clans a key line of inquiry into last week’s murder of Ghassan Amoun, the brother of the jailed Bassam Hamzy and murdered Mejid Hamzy.

Amoun and other high-ranking Hamzy members were warned by NSW Police in mid-2021 that their rivals had put prices on their heads.

That warning came when they applied to the NSW Supreme Court to have the conditions of Serious Crime Prevention Orders limiting their movements and associations relaxed so they could attend the funeral of Bilal Hamze – Amoun’s cousin and the brother of Ibrahem Hamze – who was gunned down in Sydney’s CBD in June.

Amoun ignored that warning before ending up in jail, where he spent four months before being released on January 3. Three days later he was dead.

Originally published as Alameddines planned Rushcutters Bay park hit on Mahmoud ‘Brownie’ Ahmad