SEOUL - TWENTY people from the Middle East or southwestern Asia have been arrested by South Korea's intelligence agency for suspected links to terrorism or the Taliban, an opposition lawmaker's office said on Sunday.

The arrests over the last 19 months involved alleged spying on US forces in South Korea, illegal money transfers and drug smuggling, said the office of Won Hye-young, the floor leader from the opposition Democratic Party.

Mr Won, a member of the parliamentary intelligence committee, received the National Intelligence Service's report on terrorism suspects ahead of an annual parliamentary audit of the government in October.

Three people from an unidentified southwestern Asian country were deported in October last year for collecting intelligence on US troops in South Korea, Mr Won's office said, citing the intelligence agency. The United States has about 28,500 troops in South Korea to help deter possible aggression from North Korea.

An imam from a southwestern Asian country was deported in January in 2007 for inciting anti-US sentiment, the lawmaker's office said.

Another 10 people from southwestern Asia were arrested in February last year on charges linked to an illegal transfer of funds worth about 40 billion won (S$49 million), Mr Won's office said. The 10 were linked to an international money-transfer organization accused of creating funds for terrorism attacks, it said.

In July this year, two people linked to the Taliban from an undisclosed southwestern Asian country were arrested for attempting to smuggle drugs via South Korea, while four others from a Middle East country were arrested in May for trafficking drugs from Afghanistan, said Mr Won's office, adding that the four were also linked to the Taliban.

Intelligence agency officials handling the cases were not immediately available for comment on Sunday.

It was not clear what became of the 16 arrested people who were not immediately deported.

Mr Won has urged the intelligence agency to strengthen its anti-terrorism capabilities, according to an aide who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media.

The intelligence agency had pushed for the passage of anti-terrorism legislation that was automatically scrapped at the end of the previous parliamentary term in May. The bill has faced strong opposition from critics who fear that such a law could violate human rights and give too much power to the spy agency.

Many South Koreans still distrust the intelligence agency because of abuses, including torture, committed by its predecessors to silence dissidents under the country's former military-backed governments.

South Korea has not experienced any terrorist attacks on its soil.

Two major attacks on South Korean targets - a 1983 assassination attempt on then South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan in Myanmar and the bombing of a Korean Air jet in 1987 - were both blamed on North Korea. -- AP