A dark cloud of violence hangs once more above Salford.

Since February there have been numerous shootings, a grenade attack, a machete attack, and most recently the assassination of Paul Massey and horrific knifing of Bobby Aimson in the street.

The city’s reputation has been tarnished before.

In 1992, after a period of anti-police tension, the streets of Ordsall and Broughton exploded overnight with municipal buildings torched, and firemen and a police dog handler shot at.

The riots of 2011 again saw police in Salford on the receiving end of brutal civil disorder.

But stemming the current tide of violence will take more than reinforcements and riot cops.

Infiltrating the organised crime gangs in the city – 27 at least – and dismantling them through intelligence gathering and disruption is required. The gold standard for this is Project Gulf, which has worked before.

To their credit GMP made two quick arrests after the latest shooting – a shotgun fired into a door in Douglas Green.

The real test will be finding and securing convictions of the killers of Paul Massey.

And, lest we forget, no one has been charged for either the murder of Lee Erdmann, shot dead in The Wellington pub in September 2011.

And nobody has been charged for the machine gun attack on an innocent man in the Ashley Brook pub in Liverpool Street, Langworthy, in May last year.

Remarkably, despite having 11 wounds the victim of mistaken identity in the Ashley Brook survived.

Getting intelligence to put before a court in these cases will be hard.

Does GMP have the mettle and nous to do so? I sincerely hope so.

The alternative is that Salford becomes a city where mayhem can be unleashed and the culprits remain untouched by justice.

GMP has notched up notable successes in taking on organised crime.

In dawn raids on December 17, 2013, Gulf officers arrested key criminals in Salford, Wigan, Bury and Skelmersdale.

It resulted in major players in the supply of cocaine being jailed.

A year earlier gang injunctions were successfully used to defuse dangerous rivalry between two gangs which had resulted in six shootings.

Before starting their great adventure up north the BBC required assurances that Salford was safe.

We need proof again that it is.