President Hamid Karzai has urged the international community not to abandon Afghanistan in the event of a US-led war on Iraq.

Vulnerability is not something that we want Hamid Karzai

Such a move, he told the BBC, would lead to instability not just in Afghanistan, but within the region.

He also called on Pakistan to help end cross-border attacks.

Mr Karzai was speaking ahead of a trip to the US next week where he will discuss Afghanistan with President George Bush.

Rebuilding needs

"If something goes wrong, it will not only be Afghans that will suffer," Mr Karzai told the BBC's World Today programme.

The Afghan army's reach is limited

And he underlined how much work still needed to be done on rebuilding Afghanistan since the fall of the Taleban.

Foreign aid agencies should stay "so that this country is rebuilt in terms of physical infrastructure until Afghanistan gets on its own feet with regards to the institutions of government".

Mr Karzai singled out the need to continue rebuilding Afghanistan's police and army. If these institutions were not strong, "Afghanistan would be vulnerable, and that vulnerability is not something that we want," he warned.

Caves bombed

Mr Karzai said there had been a number of attacks across the border from Pakistan recently.

Attacks had taken place in places such as Paktika, Paktia, Kandahar and other border areas.

On Tuesday, a United States military spokesman said aircraft belonging to the American-led military coalition in Afghanistan had bombed caves in the centre of the country after American special forces came under attack.

The spokesman said soldiers looking for hidden weapons were attacked on Monday morning with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns; they sustained no casualties.

A BBC correspondent in Kandahar spoke to eyewitnesses who said 13 people had been killed in the bombing, which was not on caves but on a civilian area in the Baghran area of Helmand province.