MALAYSIA'S military has launched a fierce assault including jet fighters on up to 300 Filipino intruders after a deadly three-week standoff.
However, the militants' supporters say they have escaped and are alive and well.
Malaysia's national police chief had also raised doubts about the success of the air and ground attack, saying "mopping up" operations had yet to find any bodies and suggesting at least some of the militants might have slipped away.
Malaysian premier Najib Razak said as the raid was under way that he had no choice but to unleash the military to end Malaysia's biggest security crisis in years after the interlopers refused to surrender and 27 people were killed.
A day after the Philippines called for restraint, Malaysia launched a dawn assault on the estimated 100-300 gunmen on Borneo island, who invaded to claim Malaysian territory on behalf of a former Philippine sultanate.
Fighter jets bombed the standoff village of Tanduo in Sabah state on the northern tip of Borneo island, followed by a ground assault by troops.
The area is set amid vast oil-palm plantations.
"The longer this invasion lasts, it is clear to the authorities that the invaders do not intend to leave Sabah," Najib said in a statement.
But Abraham Idjirani, spokesman for the sultan Jamalul Kiram III, said the attack had occurred "away from where" their men were, saying he spoke with the leader of the armed group about eight hours after the assault was launched.
Malaysian federal police chief Ismail Omar later told reporters in a press conference hours after the initial attack that soldiers combing across a wide area of hilly plantation country were yet to find any dead militants.
He added Malaysian forces had suffered no casualties.
If the invaders had indeed escaped a tight police and military cordon, it would likely fuel perceptions of incompetence by security forces in the affair, and sow fears that armed and dangerous gunmen were loose.
The crisis comes as Malaysia's 56-year-old ruling coalition is bracing for what are widely expected to be the country's closest-ever election against a formidable opposition, which has criticised the handling of the incursion.
Jamalul Kiram III, 74, a self-proclaimed sultan and leader of the insurgents said earlier on Tuesday in Manila that the fighters, which had included his younger brother "will fight to the last man".
Muslim-majority Malaysia has been shocked by the spectacularly bold attack by the Islamists, who claim to be asserting Jamalul's ancestral control of Sabah as heir to the now defunct Sulu sultanate.
The invaders had been holed up in Tanduo village since landing by boat last month, highlighting lax Malaysian security in the region and the continuing threat from southern Philippine Islamists.
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