American forces could be contacted. Not long before Operation Red Wings, relations with the Americans had improved in the Shuryek Valley and the greater Pech River region because of humanitarian work that had taken place. Medical services had been provided and a girls' school was built at Nangalam. Gulab was aware of these developments and had introduced himself to the Marine commander at Nangalam, Matt Bartels, when he was visiting Matin. It was partly because of this goodwill that Gulab gave Luttrell sanctuary. The Taliban leader, Ahmad Shah, knew that the wounded man he was tracking had to have passed through the village of Salar Ban as he made his way downhill. Through intimidation, Shah was able to ascertain which house sheltered the wounded man and demanded that he be turned over. However, Gulab had invoked the assistance of fellow villagers in protecting Luttrell until American forces could be contacted. Shah could not risk a fight at that stage as he was outnumbered. It is likely Luttrell would have been turned over to the Taliban had he descended into the Korangal instead of Shuryek. Luttrell was subsequently moved to different places until forces could arrive to extract him. Luttrell wrote a note and asked that it be taken to the American base at Asadabad. Because Gulab had previously met the Marine commander based at Nangalam, he asked an older man, Shina, from another part of the village of Salar Ban to make the trek with the note to the base in his stead and gave him 1,000 Afghanis (about twenty U.S. dollars) for the trip. This required a longer journey down the trails of the Shuryek valley to Matin, where he then hired a cab to drive the Pech road to Nangalam. When Shina reached the base in Nangalam in the middle of the night, he met with the commander and related the story about a wounded American soldier in their village. He then gave him the note Luttrell had written. In the weeks following Marcus Luttrell's rescue, Gulab and his family received threats from the Taliban, and they were relocated to Asadabad. American casualties Aftermath Ahmad Shah and his group recovered a large amount of weapons, ammunition, and other materials, including three SOPMOD M4 Carbines fitted with M203 40mm grenade launchers, a ruggedized laptop with an intact hard drive containing maps of embassies in Kabul, night-vision devices, and a