China Friday attacked the US for releasing five Uighur Muslims from the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, saying they were terrorists who should face justice in Chinese courts.

The five men, freed from the US-run prison in Cuba and flown to Albania for resettlement last week, were "East Turkistan" terrorist suspects, said Ismail Amat, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.

"The United States is implementing double standards and we are strongly against it," he was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua news agency.

Xinhua also quoted a foreign ministry spokesman who said ealier this week the East Turkestan was "a component of an international terrorist campaign closely connected with Al Qaida and the Taliban".

"The acts of the US and Albanian sides are a gross violation of international law and UN resolutions, and we are strongly opposed to this," Liu Jianchao said.

The five are believed to be among a group of about 20 Uighur Muslims cleared for release from Guantanamo Bay, where the Pentagon said 480 detainees still remained.

International human rights groups say that at least 17 Uighurs remain in Guantanamo.

Most of the Uighurs were believed to have been captured in Afghanistan and Pakistan after Washington launched its "war on terror" following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, rights groups have said.

US authorities have asked nearly two dozen nations to provide asylum for the Uighur detainees without success, in part because other nations do not want to anger China.

Beijing has demanded that all Chinese nationals from Guantanamo be returned but Washington held them back for fear that the government would persecute or torture them.

Uighur Muslims, who maintain a distinct ethnic identity from the Chinese, are seeking their own homeland on territory that is now part of northwestern China.

They have been fighting to re-establish the independent state of East Turkestan in Xinjiang since the province became an autonomous region of China in 1955. The Chinese government has accused some of them of being terrorists.