Police at the scene in Wetherill Park On Friday. Credit:Seven News The group has been in conflict with other organised crime groups, including rival gang The True Kings, over control of the drugs trade in the greater Fairfield area. While investigators believe Mr Hermiz and Mr Odisho had links to DLASTHR, the pair and others had come under police notice for operating a separate group, Fairfax understands. Police believe both Mr Hermiz and Mr Odisho, who are known to Fairfield detectives and the Middle Eastern Organised Crime Squad, travelled in the same car to the popular park on Friday afternoon. As the two men sat in their vehicle in a car park near Lizard Log Park, another vehicle with a group of men drove up.

Antonio Hermiz, as posted on social media. Credit:Facebook A violent confrontation then erupted with two members of the same group being shot. Investigators suspect the conflict may have been linked to drugs. The car with the shooters fled, sparking a sweeping police manhunt on Friday night. Fairfield Local Area Command Superintendent Peter Lennon confirmed at least one family was in the park nearby when the shooting occurred. "I think it's a gutless attack by these people," he said. "We've got people who at Christmas time are enjoying themselves with their family in a parkland and this sort of thing goes on."

Superintendent Lennon said "the deceased and the injured person are well known to police". The feuding between groups in the Fairfield area has resulted in more than a dozen shootings since the beginning of the year. On July 12, a man was shot in the back as he left his Fairfield home. Two weeks later, a 24-year-old man was also shot in the back in Prairiewood. Both survived. The violence forced police to establish Operation Condor, a strategy that echoed the in-your-face policing approach to curb bikie gang violence in 2012. DLASTHR has been on the police radar since the mid-2000s when members of another gang – Assyrian Kings – used the initials of their first or last name to set up a new group.

Police intelligence puts the DLASTHR gang behind the supply of cocaine, methamphetamine and cannabis in the greater Fairfield district. Speaking just outside the crime scene on Saturday morning, NSW Labor's police spokesman Guy Zangari called on the government to step in to protect residents in the area by providing funds for extra officers. "I am here today as a result of the escalating gangland violence in south-west Sydney," he said. "It's not just on the streets, it's in front of houses and in parks. ​"Locals are scared, a daylight murder has occurred in a park," he said. Fairfax Media reported in August that a recent recruitment drive had seen younger men, including brothers and cousins of members and associates, joining the gang ranks.

Some of the DLASTHR founding members behind bars include Linard Shamouil, jailed for the shooting of Ashoor Audisho in Fairfield West in 2006, and Raymon Youmaran, who was on the run for three years after a murder at the Sefton Playhouse in 2002. Friends and family of Mr Hermiz began to pay tribute on Saturday to a young man with a "heart of gold". "Fairfields Not gonna be the same with you gone, Don't know how someone had the heart to do that to a soldier so young especially around this time of the year," one post on Facebook said. Loading "May God rest your soul in peace cousin, and we pray for strength and patience through this horrible time. You were too young for this tragedy and have left us all speechless," said another.

With Phoebe Moloney