“I didn’t even see this bullet coming,” he told Nine News.
During the shooting, Rahimi ran to the aid of his staff member, who was shot twice in the torso, applying pressure to her wounds while they waited for ambulances to arrive.
Rahimi said the 47-year-old mother has worked at the store for a couple of years, adding she was “very hard working, very honest, very nice lady”.
“My staff is my first priority now, so I just hope she’s doing all right, and we will support her [with] anything we can,” he said.
“She doesn’t deserve it, to get shot.”
A major manhunt continued on Tuesday for the shooters, with investigators now looking at two cars torched overnight for links to the shooting.
A car ablaze on Gerald Street in Greystanes.Credit: Nine News
A black Audi Q7, believed to be the gunmen’s getaway vehicle, was found alight on Wigram Street in Harris Park just before 6pm.
One vehicle was found alight at 3.10am on Tuesday in a driveway of a Merrylands home. Ten minutes later, authorities were called to a second car fire, also in the driveway of a home in nearby Greystanes.
Authorities have vowed to throw as many resources “as humanly possible” at the investigation into the attack.
“It’s beyond comprehension that three people be shot in a crowded Sydney street in broad daylight,” Acting Police Commissioner Peter Thurtell said on Monday afternoon.
Police outside M Brothers restaurant on Auburn Road where three people were shot.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
Thurtell said the gunmen had tried to access an office inside the restaurant before fleeing the crime scene in the black Audi with cloned number plates.
NSW Premier Chris Minns labelled the shooting labelled “shockingly brazen”, and said police were “hunting down those responsible”.
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“We don’t stand for it, and NSW Police doesn’t stand for it,” Minns said on Monday.
Shopkeepers a few doors down from the restaurant, who asked to remain anonymous, said that had the shooting happened a few hours later, the strip would have been even busier with schoolchildren.
“It was so scary,” one staff member said.
“I heard yelling and screaming and suddenly, everyone was running and shouting to call the police. I knew something was wrong.”
Another said the community was rattled, with business down as people avoided the area.
“These gangs they just don’t care … they’ll shoot anyone for money,” he said.
Police allege Azari has climbed the ranks of the Alameddine network to become one of its most senior members not to have fled overseas or be serving a lengthy prison sentence.
Investigators from Taskforce Falcon, established to crack down on escalating gangland violence, are probing whether Monday’s shooters are the same men who opened fire on Azari last month in Granville, killing Alameddine associate Dawwod Zakaria, 32, and injuring Parramatta lawyer Sylvan Singh, 25. Zakaria died in hospital several days after the shooting, which unfolded while the men were travelling in peak-hour traffic on Woodville Road.
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A day after the assassination attempt, police warned Azari was at the “epicentre” of an ongoing feud between the Alameddine clan and rival organised crime networks, and that he could be targeted as part of a “tit-for-tat” gangland war if granted bail on firearms offences laid after the Granville shooting.
Opposing Azari’s bail application last month, police prosecutor Kai Jiang said Azari had been targeted because of his “connection and significant holding” in the Alameddine network.
“There will be further bloodshed on the streets – the streets will not be safe,” Jiang told Parramatta Local Court.
Azari also survived an assassination attempt in Brighton-Le-Sands in February.
Thurtell said police held concerns a “war” within the Alameddine network had imploded and spilled onto Sydney’s streets.
“It’s outrageous that these people have now taken their fight to the streets of Sydney. This is not what we expect in this city,” he said.
The scene outside M Brothers Turkish restaurant in the aftermath of the shooting.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
“Obviously, they’re a violent organisation, and they’re happy to target people that are outside their organisation or those, if necessary from within their own organisation.”
The ongoing conflict and recent shootings have sparked fears of attacks in the underworld, with several Alameddine members and associates taking measures to make themselves less predictable.
Police Minister Yasmin Catley said it was appalling an innocent bystander had been injured in the shooting.
“A woman has been caught up in this event – an innocent victim doing her job,” Catley said.
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