The firefight at Kampung Sri Jaya Simunul in Semporna has resulted in
a total of 12 dead, says inspector-general of police Ismail Omar.
The
police suffered six casualties, up one from what was initially
reported, he told a press conference at Felda Sabahat Residence, Lahad
Datu tonight.
"After our operation ended at 7pm today. We found another body of our police officer, so the total is six," he said.
Ismail added that police also discovered six other bodies whose identities could not be ascertained.
"We believe they are the bodies of the enemies," he said.
He added that all of surviving 19 police officers who had gone into the village were safely out of the village.
"We have gotten all of them out safely and they are now at the Semporna district police headquarters.
"With this latest development, the Semporna incident is over and the situation has returned to normal," he said.
Police were not trapped
According to a
Bernama report
this evening, Kampung Simunul has remained calm as most of the people
chose to stay indoor today after the ambush incident.
Bernama checked
around the village found that hundreds of the villagers had also taken a
precautionary measure by leaving their homes to stay with relatives at
nearby villages.
"Everyday at dusk we will start staying indoor for fear of our safety," a resident, Mohd Shah Ibrahim, 63, said.
Meanwhile the bodies of the killed police officers have also been recovered, said the IGP.
Ismail
added that a criminal investigation team is now there to mop up the
area and determine the identities of the unknown bodies.
Ismail
insisted that at no stage were any police officers held hostage when
asked if the 19 police survivors were trapped in the village.
"There
are over 300 houses there, it's a very large area and we wanted to
check house to house (to ensure there were no other police officers
left) before we made a statement on them," he said.
He added that the names of the police officers killed in action would be released only after all their families are notified.
Asked
if one of the police officer killed was beheaded, Ismail replied, "The
bodies have been brought to the hospital and I am waiting for the
report. Don't believe in rumours."
Biggest security crisis in years
This latest clash is described by
AFP
as Malaysia's biggest security crisis of recent years, occurred when
police were "ambushed" by gunmen, Ismail told reporters this morning.
Semporna
is 150km from Tanduo village, where an estimated 100-300 people have
been encircled by Malaysian police and soldiers since landing by boat
from the Philippines on Feb 12 to claim the area for their leader.
The
74-year-old Manila-based leader, Jamalul Kiram III, claims to be heir
to the Islamic sultanate of Sulu, which once controlled parts of the
southern Philippines and the modern-day Malaysian state of Sabah on
Borneo island.
Malaysian officials called for calm but various reports painted a picture of chaos in the area.
It
was not immediately made clear whether the Semporna attackers were
still at large. Meanwhile, Ismail said police were pursuing yet another
group of armed men in Kunak, another town in the region.
"I don't
want speculation that Sabah is in crisis," Ismail told an earlier news
conference. "We have our security forces at three places to respond."
The
new incidents sparked Malaysian fears of a wider campaign by other
intruders or their supporters in Sabah, which has large numbers of
Filipino immigrants - both legal and illegal.
The Philippine
embassy in Kuala Lumpur issued a statement urging calm among Filipinos.
"We feel and understand the anxieties felt by many of you at these
difficult times," it said.
"This is not the time to undertake any action that might be misunderstood by some parties."
The situation is delicate for the Southeast Asian neighbours.
Sabah crisis slap in the face for Najib
The Philippine government is looking to consolidate recent progress in
mending fences with Islamic separatists in its partly Muslim south.
The
government of Muslim-majority Malaysia, meanwhile, could face pressure
at home if harsh action is taken against the Islamic Filipino intruders,
which also could inflame Sabah's many Filipinos.
Following Friday's firefight Malaysian police threatened "drastic action" if they did not surrender.
Philippine President Benigno Aquino, who has sharply criticised the intruders, has also urged them to give up.
But
Kiram's spokesman Abraham Idjirani repeated today his followers would
not budge. He said the sultan would seek the intervention of the United
States, which colonised the Philippines in the early 1900s.
"(Malaysians)
want to hide the truth - that they do not own Sabah. It is owned by
us," he said in an interview on Philippine radio.
Sabah state
police chief Hamza Taib said several villagers in Semporna beat to death
a man armed with a M-16 rifle who had gathered several people at a
mosque on Sunday.
The sensational events have embarrassed
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak - who must call elections by June -
by exposing lax border security and fuelling perceptions of lawlessness
and massive illegal immigration into Sabah.
If security in Sabah
worsens, Najib could be forced to delay the election and he would be
vulnerable to criticism over the government's handling of the problem.
Intrusion could be linked to Moro peace deal
Lim
Kit Siang, a top opposition leader, said the government was not being
forthcoming enough with information from Sabah and the police fatalities
"could have been avoided if the whole situation had been properly
handled".
The Sulu sultanate's power faded about a century ago but
it has continued to receive nominal Malaysian payments for Sabah under a
lease deal inherited from European colonial powers.
Kiram's
people are demanding Malaysia recognise that the sultanate owns Sabah
and share profits from economic development in the state.
According to
Reuters,
the trouble looks to be at least partly the result of efforts to forge
peace in the southern Philippines, in particular a peace deal signed
between the Philippine government and Muslim rebels last October to end a
40-year conflict.
Jamalul Kiram, a former sultan of Sulu and
brother of the man Philippine provincial authorities regard as sultan,
said the peace deal had handed control of much of Sulu to Moro Islamic
Liberation Front rebels, ignoring the sultanate.
The sultan
loyalists had gone to Malaysia to revive their claim to Sabah as a
protest in response to what they saw as the unfair peace deal, he said.
According
to Abraham, the capture was conducted by Filipinos living in Sabah in
response to an alleged slaying of an imam and his four sons in Semporna.
