WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 (Xinhuanet) -- The United States is showing increasing willingness to give up its efforts in rebuilding Afghanistan, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

    The most dramatic example will come this summer, when the U.S. military officially hands over control of the volatile southern region -- plagued by persistent attacks from Islamic militias -- to an international force led by the NATO alliance.

    The transfer of power will provide the first critical test of the new U.S. strategy. The shift will allow the Bush administration, which has spent more than 47 billion dollars on military efforts in Afghanistan since 2001, to cut U.S. troops' presence in the country by 13 percent from 19,000 to 16,500, the newspaper said.

    At the same time, the U.S. government is increasingly allowing Western allies, or Afghans themselves, to take on the tasks of rebuilding a country that has suffered more than two decades of fighting and remains beset by poverty, drugs and insurgency.

    The United States has largely ceded leadership to the British government and is pinning its hopes on Afghan provincial governors to eradicate poppy fields.

    Although U.S. officials have warned repeatedly about the need to curb the burgeoning opium business, they have so far spent only modest amounts helping and now say Kabul must take the initiative, the newspaper said.

    Politically, the United States has been less willing to exert its influence. Compared with the previous ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, who played a strong, high-profile role in Kabul, negotiating directly with recalcitrant regional leaders and openly advising Afghan President Hamid Karzai, current U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ronald Neumann, who arrived several months ago, is a quieter presence who rarely interferes with Karzai's decisions.

    The United States says its shifting approach complements Afghanistan's evolution into a self-sustaining democracy and that Washington has no plans to pull out altogether.

    "The Afghans have to have enough space to make their own decisions, even to stumble sometimes. But we shouldn't leave them without critical support before they're strong enough." the newspaper quoted Neumann as saying. Enditem