M Jegathesan, AFP/Malaysiakini
Mar 5, 2013

The military today launched a fierce assault including jet fighters on up to 300 Filipino intruders after a deadly three-week standoff, but the militants’ supporters said they had escaped and were alive and well.

Earlier federal police chief had also raised doubts about the success of the air and ground attack, saying “mopping up” operations had yet to find any bodies and suggesting at least some of the militants might have slipped away.

Premier Najib Abdul Razak said as the raid was under way that he had no choice but to unleash the military to end Malaysia’s biggest security crisis in years after the interlopers refused to surrender and 27 people were killed.

A day after the Philippines called for restraint, Malaysia launched a dawn assault on the estimated 100-300 gunmen on Borneo island, who invaded to claim Malaysian territory on behalf of a former Philippine sultanate.

Fighter jets bombed the standoff village of Tanduo in Sabah state on the northern tip of Borneo island, followed by a ground assault by troops. The area is set amid vast oil-palm plantations.

“The longer this invasion lasts, it is clear to the authorities that the invaders do not intend to leave Sabah,” Najib said in a statement.

But Abraham Idjirani, spokesman for the sultan Jamalul Kiram III, told AFP the attack had occurred “away from where” their men were, saying he spoke with the leader of the armed group about eight hours after the assault was launched.

IGP: Enemies are still out there

Malaysian federal police chief Ismail Omar told reporters in a press conference hours after the initial attack that soldiers combing across a wide area of hilly plantation country were yet to find any dead militants.

“I have instructed my commanders to be on alert because we believe the enemies are still out there,” Ismail said.

He added Malaysian forces had suffered no casualties.

But if even some of the invaders had escaped a tight police and military cordon, it would likely fuel perceptions of incompetence by security forces in the affair, and sow fears that armed and dangerous gunmen were loose.

The crisis comes just as Malaysia’s 56-year-old ruling coalition is bracing for what are widely expected to be the country’s closest-ever election against a formidable opposition, which has harshly criticised handling of the incursion.

Jamalul Kiram III, 74, a self-proclaimed sultan and leader of the insurgents said earlier Tuesday in Manila that the invaders, which had included his younger brother “will fight to the last man”.

Muslim-majority Malaysia has been shocked by the spectacularly bold stunt by the Islamists, who claim to be asserting Jamalul’s ancestral control of Sabah as heir to the now defunct Sulu sultanate.

The invaders had been holed up in Tanduo village since landing by boat last month, highlighting lax Malaysian security in the region and the continuing threat from southern Philippine Islamists.

Manila blamed intruders

After the assault began, Philippine President Benigno Aquino’s spokesman blamed the intruders for the assault.

“We’ve done everything we could to prevent this, but in the end, Kiram’s people chose this path,” said the spokesman, Ricky Carandang.

After a lengthy standoff, violence first erupted in Tanduo on Friday with a shootout that left 12 of the gunmen and two police officers dead.

Another gunbattle Saturday in the town of Semporna, hours away by road, killed six police and six gunmen, raising fears of a wider guerrilla infiltration and leading to Tuesday’s military operation.

Police had already said at the weekend they were hunting for a group of “foreign” gunmen in yet another town, but have provided no further updates.

Meanwhile, followers of Kiram, have repeatedly warned that yet more militants were poised to land in Sabah.

The mayhem has triggered panic in Semporna, where many residents were witnessed by an AFP reporter fleeing the town on Monday, fearing more violence.

The Sulu sultanate, based in the southern Philippines’ Sulu islands, once controlled parts of Borneo including Sabah.

Its power faded about a century ago but its heirs continue to insist on ownership of resource-rich Sabah and still receive nominal Malaysian payments under a lease deal originally struck by Western colonial powers.

Sabah has seen small raids by Islamic militants and criminals coming by boat from the Philippines before, but nothing on the current scale.