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Two American members of the NATO force in Afghanistan were shot dead within the interior ministry in Kabul Saturday, military and government sources said, as anti-US protests raged for a fifth day.

"Initial reports indicate an individual turned his weapon against International Security Assistance Force service members in Kabul City today, killing two service members," NATO said in a statement, without giving further details.

A government source told AFP the two men were American advisors and that they were shot within the Afghan interior ministry in Kabul by a member of the Afghan police.

"There was a shooting inside the command and control centre of the interior ministry and two Americans have been killed," the source told AFP, requesting anonymity.

Some reports said the shooting was a result of a "verbal clash".

The shooting came on the fifth day of anti-US protests across Afghanistan over the burning of Korans at an American-run military base, but it was not immediately clear whether the ministry shooting was related to the demonstrations.

The US, which leads a 130,000-strong military force fighting an insurgency in Afghanistan, has advisors throughout the Afghan government.

Two American troops were shot dead on Thursday when an Afghan soldier turned his weapon on them at their base in Khogyani in eastern Nangarhar province as demonstrators approached.

On Saturday, at least four people were killed in violent protests, including an attack on a United Nations compound, taking the five day death toll from the protests to 28.

The Koran burning has inflamed anti-Western sentiment already smouldering in Afghanistan over abuses by US-led foreign troops, such as the release last month of a video showing US Marines urinating on the corpses of dead Afghans.

President Barrack Obama was Thursday forced to apologise over the burning of Korans at the Bagram US airbase north of Kabul, pledging that those responsible would be held accountable.

Violent anti-US protests have seen furious Afghans attack French, Norwegian and US bases, shouting "death to America" after the Taliban exhorted their countrymen to kill foreign troops to avenge the incident.

There were fresh protests in five different Afghan provinces Saturday over the burning of the Islamic holy book at the US airbase at Bagram near Kabul.

The worst violence was in northeastern Kunduz province, where thousands attempted to storm the UN complex but failed to get in when police fired into the crowd at around 2:00 pm (0930 GMT), an AFP correspondent at the scene said.

Officers had so far managed to stop the crowd from entering the compound, police spokesman Sarwar Husaini told AFP, adding that reinforcements were being sent to protect the premises.

A UN spokeswoman confirmed the attack but refused to say how many UN staff were on site at the time. Some reports said a group of staff had sheltered in a specially reinforced "safe room" in the complex.

Sahad Mokhtar, head of the public health department in Kunduz, said: "The report we have so far from hospitals is four killed, 56 wounded in today's demonstrations."

Denise Jeanmonod, a spokeswoman for UNAMA, the United Nations' mission in Afghanistan, confirmed the Kunduz incident, saying that the organisation was "assessing the situation at the scene."

But she refused to give further details "for the security of staff" at the compound, or to say how many people were there.

In Mihtarlam, in the central province of Laghman, hospital officials told AFP 15 protesters had been brought in with gunshot wounds.

Rallies elsewhere in Afghanistan were largely peaceful, however, authorities said, with protesters chanting "death to America" and "Long live Islam".

President Hamid Karzai's government and the US-led NATO mission in Afghanistan have appealed for calm and restraint, fearful that Taliban insurgents are trying to exploit the anti-American backlash.

AFP