An Afghan official says the country has made significant progress in its war on drugs.

Opium poppies

The deputy interior minister for counternarcotics, General Mohammed Daoud, says anti-drug forces confiscated 40 tons of opium in the first five months of this year, compared to 135 tons during last full year and 10 tons in 2003.

His comments follow U.S. criticism of the Afghan anti-opium program, and President Hamid Karzai's recent visit to Washington, where he promised to eradicate Afghan poppy production in the next six years.

Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium. Washington is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into Afghanistan's anti-drug efforts, saying the opium growing industry is now a bigger threat there than the remaining Taleban-led militants.

Some information for this report provided by AFP, AP.