ParseException error loading login-config.xml after modifying application-policy on JBoss EAP 5

Issue

• After modifying an <application-policy> in conf/login-config.xml to connect to LDAP for authentication lots of errors are seen in the log.

• Error during EAP startup after upgrading to EAP 5.

WARN  [org.jboss.security.auth.login.XMLLoginConfigImpl] (main) End loadConfig, failed to load config: vfsfile:/opt/jboss512/server/test-instance/conf/login-config.xml
org.jboss.security.auth.login.ParseException: Encountered "<?xml" at line 1, column 1.
Was expecting one of:
    <EOF>
    <IDENTIFIER> ...

        at org.jboss.security.auth.login.SunConfigParser.generateParseException(SunConfigParser.java:401)
        at org.jboss.security.auth.login.SunConfigParser.jj_consume_token(SunConfigParser.java:339)
        at org.jboss.security.auth.login.SunConfigParser.config(SunConfigParser.java:98)
        at org.jboss.security.auth.login.SunConfigParser.parse(SunConfigParser.java:57)
        at org.jboss.security.auth.login.SunConfigParser.doParse(SunConfigParser.java:79)