After meeting Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in New York last night US president Mr George W Bush rewarded him with a new aid package for Pakistan, bringing the total to more than $1 billion.
Mr Bush also said he supported debt relief for the country.
US officials declined to say how much of this was new money, but noted that $100 million had already been pledged in direct assistance. Washington has also previously pledged another $500 million in direct aid.
The new aid was to come in the form of assistance for border security, refugees, and anti-terrorism measures, as well as debt relief developed through the International Monetary Fund and the Paris Club of creditors, and trade and investment incentives, said the official who briefed reporters on condition he not be identified.
Neither Mr Bush nor Mr Musharraf, who met on the fringes of the UN General Assembly opening session, mentioned the contentious issue of whether the United States would release F-16 fighters sold to Pakistan in the 1980s and then withheld because of Islamabad's development of nuclear weapons.
President Bush also said the United States could accomplish its military mission in Afghanistan without the Northern Alliance taking the capital of Kabul and has discouraged it from trying.
A day after the Northern Alliance took the strategic city of Mazar-i-Sharif in the first major victory for the US-led forces in more than a month of war, Mr Bush encouraged "our friends" to head south, but added "not into the city of Kabul itself."
He said he would like to see it become an open city with all parties sharing power.
"We believe we can accomplish our military missions by that strategy," he said. The decision to stop short of Kabul evoked that of his father, President George Bush, who called an end to the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq after expelling Iraqi forces from Kuwait without going into Baghdad.