(CNN) There were plenty of reasons to be skeptical of the long-awaited US-Taliban peace deal that seemed to be on the cusp of announcement before this weekend.

Critics of the agreement said that it offered too many concessions to the Taliban, while extracting few concessions. There were no pre-conditions -- womens' rights were not guaranteed, a ceasefire was not imposed, and the Afghan government had not been given a seat at the negotiating table.

Yet, after nine rounds of talks and a year of hard work, the deal was still seen by some as the US's best chance at extracting itself from its longest running war.

Nearly 18 years after the invasion of Afghanistan, and days before the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, the Taliban controls more territory than it has at any time in the war, despite more than 2,400 US servicemen killed and the trillions of US dollars spent.

CNN traveled to Taliban territory in February this year and spent 36 hours on the ground with the militant group and during our trip, we found few indicators that the Taliban has changed its fundamentalist, isolationist ideology in any meaningful way.

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