WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 (UPI) -- U.S. officials continue to insist that African peacekeepers will begin replacing Ethiopian troops in Somalia within weeks, despite challenges.
Regional experts said that the Ethiopians, who booted Islamic extremist militias from Mogadishu at the end of last year and installed an internationally recognized but weak Transitional Federal Government, need to be replaced by a U.N.-authorized force as soon as possible, but said it was still unclear that was possible.
"(Ugandan) President (Yoweri) Museveni said that it would happen within two weeks," Jendayi Frazer, assistant secretary of state for African Affairs said last week.
"It's probably an optimistic timeline, but we have to get them -- the Ugandan forces -- in as soon as possible."
"By the end of the month to maybe two weeks out, by mid February -- within that window is when I see the first forces arriving into Somalia," she told an audience at Washington think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
She acknowledged that time was running out to seize what she and many others see as the opportunity created by the Ethiopian move.
"The window of opportunity -- it can close very quickly, there's no doubt about it," she said.
Nonetheless, her view is "somewhat rose-colored," David Shinn, a former senior U.S. diplomat who held several posts in the region and now studies it at George Washington University, told United Press International.
"The Ethiopians are champing at the bit to get out of there," he said.
