lay intellectuals. Sultan Muhammad Ibrahim Shafi ud-din II of Sambas in Kalimantan was executed in 1944. The Sultanate was thereafter suspended and replaced by a Japanese council. During the Japanese occupation, the Dayaks played a role in guerilla warfare against the occupying forces, particularly in the Kapit Division, where headhunting was temporarily revived towards the end of the war. Allied Z Special Unit provided assistance to them. After the fall of Singapore, several thousand British and Australian prisoners of war were sent to camps in Borneo. At one of the very worst sites, around Sandakan in Borneo, only six of some 2,500 prisoners survived. In 1945 the island was liberated from the Japanese.
The North Borneo Federation, also known as Kalimantan Utara or North Kalimantan was a proposed political entity which would have comprised the British Colonies of Sarawak, British North Borneo (Sabah) and the protectorate of Brunei. The proposed federation was originally proposed by A. M. Azahari and was particularly favoured by the Brunei People's Party, which he led. This was seen as an alternative to joining the Federation of Malaysia, which was seen as an unnatural and unfavorable union by some. Before the Brunei People’s Party electoral success, a military wing had emerged, the North Kalimantan National Army (Malay abbreviation TNKU, Tentera Nasional Kalimantan Utara), which saw itself as an anti-colonialist liberation party. After the Brunei Revolt, the idea was put to rest. Currently, there still remain groups of people who favor the creation of such an independent state and desire separation from the rest of Malaysia.
Borneo was the main site of the confrontation between Indonesia and Malaysia between 1962 and about 1969, as well as the communist revolts to gain control of the whole area. Before the formation of Malaysian Federation, the Philippines claimed that the Malaysian state of Sabah in north Borneo is within their territorial rights
