Mark Urban | |
|---|---|
 Mark Urban at Chatham House in 2011 | |
| Born | Mark Lee Urban 26 January 1961 |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation(s) | BBC correspondent, military historian |
Mark Lee Urban (born 26 January 1961) [1] is a British journalist, historian, and broadcaster. He is a writer and commentator for The Sunday Times , specialising in defence and foreign affairs. Until May 2024 he was Diplomatic Editor and occasional presenter for BBC Two's Newsnight .
Urban joined the BBC in 1983 as an assistant producer, working on several BBC news programmes. From 1986 to 1990 he was the defence correspondent of The Independent , before rejoining the BBC as a general reporter on Newsnight. From 1993 to 1994 he was Middle East correspondent for BBC News, before becoming Newsnight's diplomatic editor, a role he has held since 1995. [3] [4]
In his years on Newsnight, he has reported on the Gulf War, the Bosnian War, War in Kosovo, the War in Afghanistan and War in Iraq. [5]
After the 2018 Amesbury poisonings Urban reported that he had been working with Sergei Skripal up to a year before the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury. [6]
In 1992, Urban published Big Boys' Rules: The SAS and the secret struggle against the IRA on killings by British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary undercover units in Northern Ireland between 1976 and 1987. [7] The book, which was subject to censorship by the D-Notice Committee, was described by John Stalker as "deep and meticulous delving into a secret war". [7]
In 2010, he published Task Force Black: The Explosive True Story of the SAS and the Secret War in Iraq, described as a "ground-breaking investigation" and which required months of negotiations with the Ministry of Defence, which had tried to prevent publication. [8] [9]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
