  We calculate the spatial string tension in (2+1) flavor QCD with physical
strange quark mass and almost physical light quark masses using lattices with
temporal extent N_tau=4,6 and 8. We compare our results on the spatial string
tension with predictions of dimensionally reduced QCD. This suggests that also
in the presence of light dynamical quarks dimensional reduction works well down
to temperatures 1.5T_c.
