The Australian quoting Defence Analyst Sergei DeSilva-Ranasinghe said former LTTE members are attracted to Australia because the LTTE remains legal here, unlike in the US, Canada, Britain and 27 EU member countries, where it is proscribed as a terrorist organisation.

The LTTE have been designated a terrorist organisation in many countries but not in Australia.

He said this was an anomaly that should be rectified by Canberra adding the LTTE to its list of banned terrorist groups.

"You've got people here who've essentially been radicalised, who've fought and (may have) committed acts of terrorism, and they've come here without any sense of being rehabilitated," he said.

Since the surge in boat arrivals started in late 2008, 1100 Sri Lankan asylum-seekers have arrived in Australia. Of these 325 have been granted visas, 85 have returned and the rest are in detention.

Last week the Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard lifted the freeze on processing Sri Lankan asylum applications, after the UN High Commissioner for Refugees issued new guidelines on the handling of Tamil claims.

The UN said that improvements in the security situation in Sri Lanka since the 26-year civil war ended in May last year meant there was no need to provide automatic protection to Sri Lankans leaving the country. Rather, it said, their claims should be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

However, the new UN guidelines say individuals deemed to be at risk in their homeland require "a particularly careful examination" of their asylum claims.

Those classified among the UNHCR's "potential risk profiles" include "persons suspected of having links with the LTTE".

Mr. DeSilva-Ranasinghe says the UN's recommendation that Tamil Tiger fighters be given refuge is "ridiculous".

"They wouldn't say that for al-Qa'ida, and in my view there is no difference between the Tamil Tigers and al-Qa'ida. If anything, the Tamil Tigers are a far more ruthless organisation than al-Qa'ida," he said.

DeSilva Ranasinghe says LTTE supporters in Australia act as fundraisers for the group.

In March three Tamil Australians in Melbourne pleaded guilty to sending more than $1 million and $97,000 worth of electronic components capable of being made into bomb detonators to the LTTE. "There's an element in the Tamil Tigers that is trying to revive (its use of) terrorism. So the question for Australia is whether it's in Australia's interests for LTTE terrorism to be revived, and whether these fundraising activities will contribute to that."

The US State Department, which listed the LTTE as a terrorist group in October 2001, says: "The Tigers have integrated a battlefield insurgent strategy with a terrorist program that targets not only key personnel in the countryside but also senior Sri Lankan political and military leaders in Colombo and other urban centres.

"The Tigers are most notorious for their cadre of suicide bombers, the Black Tigers. Political assassinations and bombings are commonplace."

The FBI describes the Tigers as "among the most dangerous and deadly extremists in the world" and says their "ruthless tactics" have inspired terrorist networks worldwide, including al-Qa'ida in Iraq. It says the LTTE uses its supporters in countries such as the US to raise funds and buy weapons and explosives.

Meanwhile, Indonesian authorities believe they have captured a senior Afghan al-Qa'ida-linked figure posing as an asylum-seeker trying to reach Australia. The revelation follows information from the head of Indonesia's international crimes unit, Saud Usman Nasution, that Australian Federal Police were helping the Indonesians to compile a database to cross-check asylum-seeker and terrorist connections.