An ongoing Pakistani effort to delay the issuance of visas to U.S. diplomatic and military personnel is impeding the U.S. special operations mission to train Pakistan’s Frontier Corps, according to several U.S. sources.

The difficulty obtaining visas led to some special ops troops having their deployments to Pakistan extended and others being sent back to the country early simply because their visas were still valid, U.S. sources said. For the Special Forces troops at the heart of the mission, the visa issue has become critical. “It’s huge,” said a special operations source. “It’s everything. They can’t do their mission without the visa.”

A Defense Department official closely tracking the issue acknowledged the problem. “I know they’re working through it,” the official said. “It is what it is. They’ve got the visa requests in there, and … the Paks are very slow to approve them. … Is it disruptive? Yeah, it is. Does it seem kind of cross purposes? I mean, why allow us in there if you’re not going to renew the visas or allow more guys in to do what you’ve asked us to do? It’s a paradox.”

However, the Defense official said, the visa hassles have to be seen in a wider context of greater Pakistani commitment and sacrifice in the fight against Islamist extremists during the last few years.

In 2006, the Defense official said, “it was a big deal” when the U.S. sent a team in to survey the Frontier Corps, a locally recruited paramilitary militia in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas. “You fast forward now to 2010, you’ve got 140,000 Pakmil troops in the tribal areas — seven divisions. They’re conducting major operations in southern Waziristan, Bajaur Agency, Swat and so forth, and we have actual American trainers on the ground in Pakistan. … So I can’t explain why the Paks are so slow on these visas, but what I do see over the last four years is tremendous progress in terms of where we’ve come.”

The mission to train the Frontier Corps began in 2008 and involves roughly 100 troops, according to two U.S. sources. It is led by a colonel with a small headquarters staff based in Islamabad, a field-grade Special Forces officer familiar with the mission said. Under that colonel, but positioned closer to the action in the tribal areas, is a Special Forces company, or B team, which in turn controls three or four 12-man A teams plus non-Special Forces attachments such as civil affairs and psychological operations personnel, he said. Those teams are on deployments that last about six months.

Another A team is usually in country on a shorter deployment cycle, working with the Frontier Corps at a base farther in the rear on Joint Combined Exchange Training mission, he said.

A deadly mission

The mission to train the Frontier Corps, which has so far been conducted mainly by 3rd Special Forces Group (the current teams in country are from that group’s 2nd Battalion), hit the headlines Feb. 3, when three special operations soldiers died in a bomb blast in the Lower Dir district of the Northwest Frontier province. Killed were Sgt. 1st Class David Hartman and Sgt. 1st Class Matthew Sluss-Tiller of the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion, 95th Civil Affairs Brigade; and Staff Sgt. Mark Stets from the 8th Psychological Operations Battalion, 4th Psychological Operations Group. Maj. Rob Pickel, commander of the 3rd Special Forces Group company handling the Frontier Corps training mission at the time, and Pickel’s company sergeant major were also badly wounded in the explosion.

The explosion in Lower Dir was a blow to a mission already hampered by a Pakistani government crackdown on giving visas.

“The Pakistanis have been very vigilant and very, shall we say, restrictive in what they are allowing or authorizing for visa access for people that would be on extended stays,” said an Army officer in the Pentagon closely tracking the issue. “They’ve been that way since late last year … with respect to all military and almost all of the diplomatic passports that have been applied for.”

The new policy seemed to be a reaction to public fears of greater U.S. interference in Pakistan’s national security, the Army officer said.

“It originated right around the time there was a lot of hysterical press in Pakistan about Blackwater under every rock and anybody coming in and out as an American [was] looking to establish permanent forward outposts for Blackwater,” the official said, referring to the controversial U.S. defense contractor now known as Xe. “There was even some ridiculous, but very well-traveled, [rumor] about a Marine regiment coming into the heart of Islamabad. The Pakistanis responded as Pakistanis have historically: much more intense scrutiny.”

The Defense official and the Army officer in the Pentagon each said that the U.S. government had raised the visa issue with “the highest levels” of the Pakistan government. The Pakistanis typically respond with “debating points about whether we are accurate or not in our assertions,” the Army officer in the Pentagon said.

Pakistan army Brig. Gen. Nazir Butt, the defense attaché at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington, acknowledged that there had been some delays, but said that any problems had been overcome.

“There have been delays,” he said. “Previously the visas were issued right in the embassy, but then since the number started increasing, now there is a new procedure that all the requests are sent to Islamabad, and there it takes time, it takes time. … Previously people used to get it in weeks. Now maybe a couple of weeks … not more than one month.”

He implied that U.S. personnel were at fault for not being able to adapt to the change in procedure. “People were not used to preparing in advance,” he said. “But now it has been regulated, fine-tuned.”

“There were certain difficulties, but I think most of the things have been resolved,” Butt said. “There is no problem. We are getting a great many number of our U.S. friends, U.S. military personnel who go to Pakistan, and they help us in training and in various exercises.

“There is no problem at our end,” Butt said. “Anybody whose documents are complete, who has a letter of invitation, for them there is no problem. … Anybody who has been invited to Pakistan, there is no way that the Pakistani government cannot arrange their visa.”

The view from the U.S. side is not quite so rosy. “The Pakistanis have been willing to honor, in most cases, those that are in country remaining in country, but those that need new visas are going through a rather extended and challenged process,” the Army officer in the Pentagon said.

The Defense official said the visa problems were not jeopardizing the training mission. “We’ve still got the capability on the ground to do the training,” the official said. “Obviously, if they didn’t renew the existing visas or grant visas for new people to come in, sure, eventually it would jeopardize the mission.”

The Defense official described the visa issue as “a small bump along the way” when it came to increasing cooperation from Pakistan. “These guys are fighting,” the Defense official said of the Pakistani armed forces. “These guys have lost almost 900 guys this year dead in the tribal areas.”

But the struggle to get visas has left the special operations community frustrated and bemused, said a special ops source. “Ultimately, the question is: Is the training mission really important to Pakistan, or is it just important to us?” the source said.