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At that point, Rasul later explained, a civilian walking along the road was shot. The commander was not delayed for long: "If he was injured, I would have helped him. Unfortunately, he was dead." Even so, when his truck reached the far end of the compound, Rasul was sprinting to catch up. He slammed the door behind him. Bashir and his men had driven on. It was still two hours to Lashkar Gah.
Between moments of lighter gunfire that followed, Rasul lamented the plight of civilians in general. He estimated that it was only 10 to 15 Taliban who had tied down the convoy of 20-plus vehicles. He complained of corruption and a lack of planning among the security forces. But there were no more traffic jams, and the convoy arrived in Lashkar Gah at dusk with only minor injuries.
"I would love to retire," remarked Rasul, heading to his barracks. He claimed to be a 29-year veteran of the ABP. "But the country needs me."
Three days later, the international coalition's Regional Command Southwest issued a press release. It included footage of Cunningham inside the Sangin district governor's compound but not of the jirga itself. "The successful Sangin peace jirga," it concluded, "gave the diplomats a firsthand view of the progress being made in the once insurgent hotbed of Sangin."
In Lashkar Gah, there was a different view. One civil-court judge, Qazi Fazily Ahmad, noted that "a peace meeting normally means a group comes from both sides. But there was no one representing the other side. The government received their answer."
Contacted by phone, Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi was even more dismissive of the jirga.
"Step by step, we have our own movements," he said with a measured crackle, "our own resistance. These infidels and their slaves, what they are doing is nothing. These jirgas are happening, but there is resistance everywhere. These kinds of things have no result. This is not the time of peace talking."