Three dead as Malaysia ends stand-off

THREE people including two police officers were killed as Malaysian security forces ended a stand-off with Filipino gunmen over a territorial dispute in Sabah, the Philippine government said.
Dozens of followers of the little-known sultan of Sulu had been facing off with Malaysian police for the past two weeks, after they sailed from their homes in the southern Philippines to stake a territorial claim in Malaysian Borneo.

The 74-year-old Jamalul Kiram III says he is the head of the Islamic Sultanate of Sulu, which once controlled parts of Borneo including the site of the stand-off, as well as southern Philippine islands.
The owner of the house where the leader of the gunmen stayed during the 17-day stand-off was also killed but the nationality was not known, Philippine foreign department spokesman Raul Hernandez told reporters, citing a report by Malaysia's ambassador.

A third Malaysian police officer was wounded after the gunmen opened fire on their van, he said.
"The Malaysian ambassador said that the rest of the Kiram group in Lahad Datu escaped and ran toward the sea," he said, adding that 10 members of the group were arrested.

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 told AFP two police officers had been brought in with gunshot wounds but were in stable condition.

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