Indonesia's military needs at least 70,000 more troops to ensure security and would ideally be almost double its current size, a report quoted the head of the army as saying.

Army Chief General Ryamizard Ryacudu said that at least 350,000 men were needed to effectively safeguard the sprawling country and added that the army's current force only stood at 280,000, the Koran Tempo reported.

Indonesia's military is currently engaged in a major offensive in the western province of Aceh to stamp out a long-running separatist rebellion, but is regularly deployed across the archipelago in violent trouble spots.

Earlier this week, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group said Indonesia's 280,000-strong police force needed to be doubled if it was to protect the country from threats including terrorists and ethnic conflict.

The world's largest Muslim-populated country has been hit by three major extremist attacks in the past three years, the deadliest being the October 2002 Bali bombings in which 202 people died.

Speaking on Wednesday, Ryacudu said Indonesia's armed forces, which have been heavily criticised in the past for human rights abuses, should account for 0.5 to 1.0 percent of a nation's population. "So that if our population is around 220 million people, armed forces personnel should number about one million," Ryacudu said.

The army was a personnel intensive force unlike the navy and the airforce which had to rely on aircraft and vessels, he said, and therefore should account for the bulk of armed forces personnel. He said ideally, the army should have around 500,000 men but that 350,000 would be the minimum for an effective force.