AFP - US authorities Thursday sent four Uighurs from the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba to Bermuda, the latest remote island to take in the men unwanted by the United States and pursued by China.

Some 17 Uighurs, members of a largely Muslim minority in China which according to the US State Department faces persecution, have been cleared of wrongdoing by US authorities but were waiting in limbo at the controversial camp in Cuba.

US authorities flew four of the men early in the morning to the Atlantic island of Bermuda. They are the first Uighurs to leave Guantanamo Bay since 2006, when five of them moved to Albania to the fury of China.

"By helping accomplish the president's objective of closing Guantanamo, the transfer of these detainees will make America safer," US Attorney General Eric Holder said.

"We are extremely grateful to the government of Bermuda for its assistance in the successful resettlement of these four detainees, and we commend the leadership they have demonstrated on this important issue."

A tiny Pacific island, Palau, has also offered to accept the Uighurs. Palau is among the dwindling number of nations that recognizes Taiwan as China's government rather than Beijing.

China has applied intense pressure on nations not to provide refuge to the group of 22 Uighurs originally arrested in Afghanistan after the US-led military operation in 2001 and has tried to link them to Islamic extremist movements.

The United States has ruled that the men, who had been living in a camp in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and said they fled persecution by China, were not involved in "terrorism." It has refused China's demands for them, fearing they would be tortured if they return home.

Alim Seytoff, general secretary of the Uighur American Association, said the community was grateful to Bermuda but hoped the men could eventually resettle in a Western democracy such as the United States, Germany, Australia or Canada.

But he voiced concern for the future of the men, originally from the deserts and mountains of China's Xinjiang province, on remote holiday islands.

"We are happy that some of them have been released," Seytoff said. "But our concern with Bermuda and Palau is that there is not a Uighur community that can offer the kind of support that they need."

US President Barack Obama is trying to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, reviled by many as a symbol of excesses carried out in his predecessor George W. Bush's "war on terror."

But he has faced major roadblocks, with the Senate refusing funding for the administration to repatriate the Uighurs or some three dozen other men at Guantanamo Bay who have been held indefinitely without charges but judged by military authorities to pose no risk.

A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, promised that the four Uighurs sent to Bermuda will not be allowed to enter the United States without formal permission.

"Through the use of biometric identification in our consulates and ports of entry, advance passenger screening systems, and watch lists, we are confident that the United States has the measures in place to assure against such travel," the official said.

The United States went ahead with the transfer to Bermuda despite renewed pressure from China, which demanded custody of all 17 who were in Guantanamo Bay.

The United States should "stop handing over terrorist suspects to any third country," foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters, adding the Uighurs should be sent back to China "at an early date."

Qin alleged the Uighur detainees were "members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement" -- a group listed by the United Nations and the United States as a terrorist organization.

"East Turkestan" is what many Muslims call Xinjiang, which borders Central Asia and is home to about 8.3 million Uighurs.