Police said they found the device, which contained potentially explosive liquid, in a plastic bag outside the home of a Bandidos chief in the city's west, following an anonymous tip-off.An improvised explosive device was left outside the home of an Australian biker gang boss Tuesday, as a violent turf war in Sydney escalated."The bomb police at the scene believe the item had the capability of causing an explosion," said Superintendent Garry Sims.
"If you think of the old-fashioned TNT stick, or the things you see in movies, it was nothing like that at all. There were no hand grenades, no military rounds. It was a liquid substance that's being analysed."The discovery came just days after a Hells Angels biker whose brother was recently bludgeoned to death at Sydney Airport was gunned down outside his home.Clive Small, the former assistant police commissioner for New South Wales state, said police should expect escalating gang violence and revenge attacks.
"What we have now is not only an increase in the number of shootings and drive-bys, we have an added threat and potential of bombs," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
The Hells Angels city clubhouse was bombed last month, and there was an explosion beneath a car belonging to the leader of the Notorious gang last October.Authorities have fast-tracked laws that allow police to ban nominated biker groups, and for courts to impose jail terms of up to five years if members continue to associate with one another.Experts say the violence stems from turf wars over drug distribution, particularly methamphetamine or "ice."
The last time Australia's bikers battled in public was 25 years ago, when six gang members and a teenage girl died in a shootout between the Bandidos and Comancheros in the car park of a Sydney pub.