ON Feb 11, 2013, a band of intruders from southern Philippines encroached onto Malaysian soil and landed in Lahad Datu on the west coast of Sabah. They came by boats and were carrying firearms.
Joined by a few dozen others squatting at a nearby village called Kampung Tanduo, the group of 235 men, mostly mercenaries of Tausug descent aged between their late teens and 60s, gathered at a beach.
With about half of them carrying rifles and in military fatigues, they identified themselves as members of the Royal Sulu Force (RSF) sent by the then chieftain and self-proclaimed Sultan of Sulu, Jamalul Kiram III.
They had come to invade and reclaim Sabah, with plans to make it part of the so-called empire of the Sulu Sultanate.
Apart from the communist insurgency and Indonesian Confrontation, the intrusion was the beginning of the first armed conflict modern Malaysia would see.
Passing fishermen who spotted the RSF intruders quickly tipped off the police about the suspicious gathering and surveillance began.
By then, the intruders had moved into scattered settlements in the vast Felda Sahabat oil palm plantation in Kampung Tanduo and held up villagers, looting food supplies and other essentials before taking refuge in their homes.
Malaysian authorities first took a soft approach by holding discussions brokered by local village leaders to hear the demands of the group, hoping the intruders would leave and return to south Philippines without causing further trouble.
As the Malaysian government continued refuting claims of the men being militants, food and supplies were channeled to the enemy for weeks as police forces, including the General Operations Force and VAT69 police commandos, took their positions, cordoning off the village perimeter.
The intruders were given a deadline to leave but they were dead set on staying and defied the order.
Early on March 1, the intruders drew first blood, killing two police commandos and injuring three others who were on watch at the conflict zone.
After the first battle erupted and in a counter strike, police killed a dozen of the enemy in a skirmish that lasted two days.
On March 3, sympathisers of the fighting Tausugs, who were villagers holed up in a floating village called Kampung Simunul in Semporna more than 200km from Kampung Tanduo, were reported to be assembling to retaliate against Malaysian forces.
Two dozen policemen, who were armed merely with handguns and were tasked to investigate, were ambushed by a heavily armed group. Six of them were killed and several others injured.
Two of the dead policemen suffered a horrific death after they were beheaded, scalped and had their faces ripped off.
As the government woke up to the reality of the situation, an operation codenamed Ops Sulu and later renamed Ops Daulat was launched.
Reinforcements of personnel and weapons followed and sporadic shootouts occurred over several days.
The army was then roped in to assist, with heavy gunnery, armoured vehicles and tanks making their way into the battle zone.
With the army and police fighting alongside to flush out the enemy, the air force was engaged.
Days later, fighter jets roared past the skies above Kampung Tanduo, pounding it in an aerial bombing.
Six weeks into the incursion, the battle zone was mopped up by security forces and Ops Daulat came to an end on March 24.
While tens of RSF insurgents either fled back to south Philippines or blended in with local villagers to avoid detection, about 70 were killed in the conflict.
About 400 RSF insurgents and those with suspected links to them were arrested.
In the months ahead, dozens of them were charged in court for various offences, including waging war against the King.
Among them was an intruder within the police force, a member of the Special Branch, who was sentenced to seven year’s imprisonment for withholding information about the intrusion.
Nine members of the RSF, including Jamalul Kiram’s son Basad Manuel, 45, were sentenced to death for waging war against the King, a verdict that was upheld by an appellate court after the accused appealed against the sentence years later.
