Defence ministers, meeting in the Hungarian capital Budapest, heard a plea from NATO's commander and Afghanistan's defence minister for their nations to take on the drug challenge, but differences could not be immediately overcome.

"I cannot say that all noses are pointing already in the same direction," NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told reporters. "Discussion will be continued tomorrow morning."

NATO leads an almost 51,000-strong security force in Afghanistan but an increasingly sophisticated Taliban-led insurgency is undermining its efforts to spread the Kabul government's influence across the country.

The alliance has generally avoided tackling drugs, fearful of compromising its support from ordinary Afghans, including many poor farmers dependant on such crops for their livelihoods.

Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Romania and Spain have led opposition against officially diving into the drug war in earnest for the first time, believing that the Afghans themselves should drive such efforts.

"I admit, this is a complex and complicated question we are discussing," Scheffer said, vowing to "do my utmost to come to any form of conclusion tomorrow."

A solution was urgently needed, he said, because "our guys are killed by the weapons bought by the Taliban financed by drug money."

A NATO official said privately that the debate had been "very animated" and that ministers would hold a raft of bilateral meetings to try to seal an agreement.

German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung expressed reservations about the plan, saying that Berlin "would also like to play a role in the fight against drugs, but with the Afghans taking the lead".

During the talks, Afghan Defence Minister Mohammad Rahim Wardak and US Defense Secretary Robert Gates called on reluctant NATO nations to greenlight the plan.

"I would like NATO to support our efforts in the counter-drug campaign," Wardak said. "I ask NATO for that."

Gates said it was important for NATO to change tack on drugs, which he said provides Taliban fighters with at least 60-80 million dollars a year, but denied that this would put Kabul in the back seat.

"We are not talking about any counter-narcotic strategy. That would be the Afghan responbility," he said. "What we are talking about is clear freedom to track down networks of those who are funding the Taliban."

He said the problem was at its worst in seven provinces in southern Afghanistan, and that the allies were discussing whether countries might agree to the idea as long as they were not forced to take part.

"One of the issues is whether people can in essence opt out, whether individual governments who don't want their forces to be engaged in this can do that and then not block others," he said.

Afghanistan is a source of some 92 percent of the world's opium and heroin.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan has also been plagued by a series of woes, including a lack of troops and civilian casualties.

In recent days, British and French commanders have insisted that the war against the Taliban, ousted from power in 2001 by a US-led coalition, cannot be won by force alone.

And, according to US press reports Thursday, the United States has launched an urgent review of its policy as intelligence officials warn of a "downward spiral" in efforts to stabilise Afghanistan.

Scheffer said that a number of ministers had pledged troops and equipment Thursday but he declined to provide details.

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