Philippines says Malaysia ends stand-off, 3 dead

Dozens of followers of the little-known sultan of Sulu had faced off with Malaysian security forces after they sailed from their remote Philippine island homes to press a territorial claim to the Malaysian state of Sabah on Borneo.

Jamalul Kiram III, 74, says he is heir to the Islamic Sultanate of Sulu, which once controlled parts of Borneo, as well as southern Philippine islands.

The owner of the house where the leader of the gunmen stayed during the impasse was also killed but the person's nationality was not known, Philippine foreign department spokesman Raul Hernandez said.

A third Malaysian police officer was wounded after the gunmen opened fire on their van, he said, citing a report by Malaysia's ambassador Zamri Kassim.

Malaysia's government has not yet confirmed that the confrontation has ended.

"The Malaysian ambassador said that the rest of the Kiram group in Lahad Datu escaped and ran toward the sea," he said.

They were being pursued by the Malaysian security forces, Hernandez said, adding that 10 members of the group were arrested.

"The ambassador said that the stand-off is now over," Hernandez added.

Malaysia's state news agency Bernama reported that two police commandos had been killed in a mortar shell explosion as they patrolled around the village where the gunmen were holed up.

It was unclear if they were the two police officers mentioned by Hernandez.

An official at the main hospital in the town of Lahad Datu near the site of the stand-off also told AFP two police officers had been brought in with gunshot wounds but were in stable condition.

Hernandez said he could not confirm allegations by a Manila spokesman for the gunmen that Malaysian security forces had shot dead 10 members of the group and wounded four others.

Hernandez said Manila had formally demanded a full account of the security operation that ended the stand-off, as well as access to the detained Filipinos.

Kiram's spokesman Abraham Idjirani claimed Malaysian snipers had killed 10 of the sultan's men and wounded four other members of the group.

Their leader Raja Muda Agbimuddin Kiram, a brother of the self-proclaimed sultan, had avoided capture and remains in Sabah with his men to continue the fight, Idjirani added.

"This is just the beginning," he warned.

The Islamic Sultanate of Sulu leased northern Borneo to Europeans in the 1870s.

While the sultanate's authority gradually faded as Western colonial powers exerted their influence over the region, it continued to receive lease payments for Sabah.

The former British colony became part of the federation of Malaysia when it was formed in 1963.

Kiram and the other heirs of the sultan still receive nominal annual compensation from Malaysia in the equivalent of about $1,700.

Idjirani suggested last week that the men would stand down if the compensation were substantially raised.