A GANG war over drug turf that has been simmering for two decades has erupted into a series of public shootings that has turned Fairfield in western Sydney into Australia’s most dangerous suburb.

Four shootings in the last two weeks alone, with two of them in the same street, have rocked the ethnically diverse suburb which houses Middle Eastern, southeast Asian and African communities 30km west of Sydney’s CBD.

War is believed to have broken out between DLASTHR (The Last Hour) gang and a young breakaway group called The True Kings.

Both are branches of the Assyrian Kings, the gang that assassinated police officer David Carty in a savage 1997 stabbing murder during which gang members sliced off the constable’s nose.

In the Fairfield Police local area command, there was also an attempted drive-by shooting between the rival gangs and the fire bombing of a house, both in March this year.

Sydney’s Assyrian community of more than 20,000 people whose families originally came from Turkey, Syria and Iraq, mainly live in the greater Fairfield area which includes suburbs Edensor Park and Abbottsbury.

The Assyrian Kings gang was formed from a small number of northern Iraqi refugees who fled the Middle East in the wake of the 1990 Gulf War, and were given asylum in Australia.

Following the murder of 25-year-old policeman David Carty in Fairfield’s Cambridge Tavern car park, just a five-minute drive from this month’s shootings, three men were convicted, another gang member released on appeal and three were acquitted.

Thamier Sako and Edward Esho served sentences of less than five and six years, leaving only Dawood Odishou, aka Gilbert Adam, still in prison.

The Assyrian Kings became known as DLASTHR, with members sporting gang tattoos.

In 2002, foundation gang members Raphael Joseph and Ramon Youmaran were involved in the shooting murder of rival gang boss Dimitri Debaz of the Bronx Boys, who was gunned down at Sefton in western Sydney.

Youmaran, who is serving a minium of 13 years for the Debaz murder, was also linked to a fatal drive-by shooting of innocent bystander Ramon Khananyah at Fairfield’s Babylon Cafe in 2005.

At a 2005 Persian New Year’s Eve party in the Rocks on Sydney Harbour, Naser Ghaderi, 25, and his friend Keyvan Ghajaloo, 24, were killed in a drive-by shooting which police later linked to founding DLASTHR leader, Ahmed Alfadly.

In 2006, Iraqi-born Assyrian man Ashur Audisho was shot dead in a drive by shooting on a Fairfield street. Police believe the shooting was by the Last Hour gang.

In 2012, members of DLASTHR split from the gang to form their own group, The True Kings.

In 2014, Last Hour founder Raphael Joseph disappeared and is presumed murdered.

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.

But over the last few months, tensions over drug supply have erupted between DLASTHR and The True Kings allegedly resulting in the shootings, fire bombings and intimidation in Fairfield and its surrounding areas.

Fairfield local area commander Peter Lennon told news.com.au that police investigators were still working on who was behind this month’s shootings.

Police often faced a cone of silence from the victims of shooting attacks.

The violent stabbing murder of 35-year-old drug addict Tu Luong in Belmore Street, Fairfield last December was not connected to the Assyrian gangs, and six men have been charged with Luong’s murder.

But the violent incidents plaguing the streets of Fairfield and its neighbouring suburbs since February are the result of the Assyrian gangs’ civil war.

Two cars were firebombed in Edensor Park - which has a heavy Assyrian population among its residents - in February, and in March a house in the same street caught on fire in what was believed to be a targeted attack.

The house fire was “the latest instance of the exploding war between the Assyrian Kings and the True Kings, young upstarts looking to assert power and seize control of territory in the city’s southwest”, the Daily Telegraph reported.

In May, True Kings member Mohammed Hussanien and another man were shot at by three Last Hour members from another car in Edensor Park, causing them to crash.

His friend fled the scene, but one of the three men allegedly pulled a gun on Mr Hussanian which didn’t fire.

Police charged three Last Hour gang members, Samer Marcus, 41, and George Hanna, 25, and Danny Hanna, 26, with shooting with intent to murder, shooting with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and participating in an organised criminal group.

On June 28, a man carrying a handgun fired shots into a house at the intersection of Francis and Coleraine streets in Fairfield.

On July 7, shots were fired into a house in Madeline Street, Fairfield. Three days later a house in Pomo Close was peppered with a volley of gunshots.

This week, in the early morning of July 12, 26-year-old Raby Abdul-Rahman was shot multiple times in the back and legs in a brazen shooting, again at Francis Street, Fairfield.

Found by his brother unconscious and bleeding on the street, Mr Abdul-Rahman was taken to hospital in a serious condition.

A man, 29, was arrested trying to enter the crime scene soon after the shooting.