Don Greenlees and Robert Garran, Jakarta/Canberra – The leak of confidential Indonesian army documents on troop numbers in East Timor yesterday appeared to throw the armed forces headquarters in Dili into confusion.

Deputy military commander Colonel Mudjiono initially denied the contents of personnel documents showing 17,914 troops were stationed in East Timor at the end of August, despite promises by Jakarta to start withdrawals. "I swear that there are now only five battalions of territorial troops. This means about 5000 men," Colonel Mudjiono told The Weekend Australian.

However, a less senior officer in the Dili command, Lieutenant-Colonel Supadi, told AAP the estimate of almost 18,000 combat and territorial troops "may be true". "There are still many civilians who have been trained in military exercises and they also carry guns," said Lieutenant-Colonel Supadi, chief of staff in the Dili headquarters.

When these comments were put to Colonel Mudjiono and a commander at Udayana Command in Bali, Lieutenant Colonel I Made Runa, they admitted the number of troops could be up to 18,000 if various categories of police units, navy, air force and civilians trained as military were included. Both continued to insist those troops still in East Timor were engaged in "farming and building houses" for local people, and not combat duty.

The confused response to troop numbers follows the extensive leak this week of armed forces personnel information to foreign media and governments. More than 100 pages of highly detailed documents show unit compositions, names of personnel, details of the extensive paramilitary network and the extent of the military role in civil administration.

Despite Indonesian claims to have withdrawn all combat troops, 7938 were still in place in August, up 1766 from November last year. The leak is an embarrassment to Jakarta and threatens to undermine confidence in negotiations on a solution to the East Timor problem. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer yesterday cautiously criticised the Indonesian Government's failure to withdraw troops from East Timor, saying he would be "disappointed", and the reconciliation process "weakened", if this were the case.

He said his Indonesian counterpart, Ali Alatas, had officially informed him on July 27 that troop numbers would be reduced by about 1000, with further possible reductions after that. "They (the reported troop figures) are completely new to me but I have seen figures that have varied enormously, by almost tens of thousands, and clearly a lot of the figures you hear are wildly inaccurate," he said.

"If the documents were to be accurate, it would be a matter of real concern to us. If troop numbers aren't being reduced in East Timor, then that is going to weaken the spirit of reconciliation, which is necessary for there to be a settlement to the East Timor problem."

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Laurie Brereton said yesterday the documents dealt a blow to efforts in East Timor at building confidence and trust. "An independent monitoring presence is essential to establish an atmosphere conducive to effective dialogue and negotiation," he said. But Mr Downer rejected the call, saying: "Indonesia is a sovereign country and they'll make their own judgments about whether they would allow international observers in."

The armed forces have consistently understated troop strength in East Timor, putting numbers at 11,700 after a heavily publicised "pull-out" from Dili on July 28.