KOTA KINABALU: A Sulu armed intrusion into Sabah is a real possibility despite the death of the leader of southern Philippine gunmen involved in the 2013 failed incursion of a coastal village in Lahad Datu.

Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) academician Wan Shawaluddin Wan Hassan said the death of Raja Muda Agbimuddin Kiram was unlikely to diminish the security threat posed by Sulu gunmen.

He said gunmen were made up largely of the Tausug community and that they were likely to want revenge for the dozens of their counterparts killed by Malaysian forces two years ago.

“They incurred heavy losses and blood was spilt. It’s all about vengeance and I don’t see how Agbimuddin’s death will change anything,” said Wan Shawalluddin, the UMS Social Sciences Faculty senior lecturer.

He said some of those among the southern PhilippineTausug community also viewed Malaysia as being a colonial power occupying Sabah which they still perceive as being their ancestral territory.

Wan Shawalluddin noted that the Sulu gunmen would probably bide their time in exacting their vengeance against Malaysia.

“When we look at their history, they endured the occupation of the Spanish colonialists for 300 years until they were defeated by the United States,” he said.

“It taught them even if they lose today, they will keep fighting. The intrusion at Kampung Tanduo in 2013 was another chapter for them,” Wan Shawalluddin added.

In this regard, he said Malaysian security forces were taking the right stance in maintaining their vigilance along Sabah’s east coast.

Sabah Police Commissioner Datuk Jalaluddin Abdul Rahman has said authorities viewed a resurgence of the Sulu threat as a real possibility as Agbimuddin and the self-proclaimed royal Sulu sultanate have successors.

Agbimuddin, the younger brother of self-proclaimed Sulu Sultan Esmail Kiram II, died of a heart attack at his house in Simunul in the southernmost Philippine province of Tawi Tawi on Tuesday.

His death came a month before the second anniversary of the intrusion of Kampung Tanduo in Lahad Datu on Feb 12, 2013.

When contacted in Manila, Esmail Kiram’s spokesman Abraham Idjirani said the family had named a younger brother, Datu Phugdal Kiram, 68, as the “Raja Muda successor”.