But the militia gangs which unleashed a campaign of terror after the August 30 vote for independence appeared to have completed a withdrawal begun as the troops approached -- virtually no one were sighted by reporters in the capital on Sunday.

However, hundreds of the refugees the militias had chased from their homes remained, sheltering in flimsy shacks set up among gutted buildings and along the harbour in areas strewn with piles of garbage. Barefoot and haggard-looking children wandered along the bay as Indonesian naval vessels prepared to ship them and their families to Kupang in neighbouring West Timor.

Indonesian military authorities said on Sunday they wanted the squalid camps cleared from the points where the foreign troops would arrive, but by Monday they had only succeeded in emptying theairport terminal.

When the first peacekeepers landed in an air convoy at first light and secured the building, the terminal stank of excrement, a sign of the appalling conditions the refugees had endured.

In the capital, Indonesian marines and Army soldiers ensured security was extremely tight.

Apart from the military activity, only refugees were seen wandering the streets, some of an estimated 10,000 in the capital.

Up to 1,90,000 others are believed to have fled into the jungles and mountains. Around 2,00,000 have also fled to Indonesian West Timor. East Timor military commander Colonel Noer Muis, the top Indonesian soldier in the territory until martial law was ordered by Jakarta, said on Sunday the refugees would be moved from the strategic entry points to be used by the peacekeepers.