KABUL - The international community on Monday pledged almost four billion dollars to help the fragile interim government restore peace to Afghanistan, amid reports of fresh factional fighting.

Reports that former allies in the struggle against the Taliban were fighting among themselves came as Afghanistan's new leader warned international donors meeting in Tokyo that his country could still slide back into anarchy.

"We have one fear - that without a full partnership with the international community, Afghanistan may falter again," Hamid Karzai said in Tokyo.

"In an environment of inadequate security, fragmented governance, the non-integration of Afghan returnees, Afghanistan could remain a source of instability to the world and the region," he warned.

The Afghan Islamic Press (AIP), a private Pakistan-based news agency which has been a key source of information on the conflict, reported on Monday that fighting had been raging in the northern province of Kunduz for two days.

AIP said forces loyal to Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostam, the deputy defence minister in Karzai's power-sharing regime, are fighting the mainly Tajik mujahedin of former president Burhanuddin Rabbani, whose faction also holds key government positions.

It was impossible to independently confirm the report, which said 11 soldiers had been killed, or contact faction commanders.

If the report proves correct it would be a cruel blow to the fledgling government, just as the largesse pledged in Tokyo offered hope of dragging Afghanistan out of more than two decades of conflict.

In another development that will concern international donors, the World Food Programme (WFP) said aid convoys continued to fall prey to Afghan bandits.

Gunmen beat up aid workers and stole 40 tonnes of food aid in northern Faryab province on Thursday, WFP spokesman Khaled Mansour said.

International donors - led by Japan, the European Union and the United States - pledged at least US$3,9 billion dollars to the reconstruction effort, with more than one billion due this year.

Announcing that the European Union would stump up 550 million euros this year, EU external affairs commissioner Chris Patten, said: "We must not lose sight of our objective - to build a better Afghanistan, an Afghanistan free from terror, social injustice and exclusion, and warlordism."

The biggest contributors were Europe and Japan. But former supporters of the Taliban were also generous, with Saudi Arabia pledging US$220 million over three years and neighbouring Pakistan promising US$100 million over five.

"We're thrilled," Afghan foreign ministry spokesman Oamr Samad told reporters.

Karzai made an impassioned plea for the pledges to turn rapidly into hard cash and urged the world to forgive debts run up by former Afghan rulers, including the hardline Taliban who were ousted last month.

In Kabul, his ministers were rapidly drawing up impressive shopping lists.

Deputy Planning Minister Salam Jan told AFP the first priority was to repatriate refugees. "They will need land, houses, agricultural equipment and seeds so that they can restart their lives," he said.

Between four and five million Afghans - about one-fifth of the population - currently live in refugee camps in Pakistan, Iran and inside the country.

US troops are still inside Afghanistan searching for Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and Osama bin Laden.

Meanwhile the hunt for al Qaeda supporters outside Afghanistan continued, with troops, police and intelligence agencies from the United States and its allies battling to dismantle the network.

US special forces on Monday raided a house in eastern Afghanistan and arrested four Afghans, including an associate of a Taliban commander, AIP said.

It said US troops arrived in several helicopters at Zari Khil village, 12 km west of Khost, in the early hours of the morning.

After raiding a house, they arrested four people including Sirajuddin Din, a close associate of top Taliban commander Jalaluddin Haqqani who has been a target of US bombing, local militia commander Zakeem Khan told AIP.

The director of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Robert Mueller, arrived in Yemen for talks with President Ali Abdullah Saleh, official sources said.

The FBI is expected to resume inquiries into the October 2000 attack on the warship USS Cole in Aden harbour, which killed 17 sailors.

In the Philippines, some 42 US troops were setting up a temporary base in the southern city of Zamboanga for a planned six-month campaign in which around 600 US "military advisers" are to help Filipino colleagues crush Muslim rebels.

Elsewhere police agencies have swooped on suspected al Qaeda cells, arresting scores of alleged militants in Britain, France, Germany, Pakistan, Singapore, Spain and elsewhere, amid fears of further suicide attacks. - Nampa-AFP