Mark Urban

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Mark Urban
Mark Urban at Chatham House in 2011
Born
Mark Lee Urban

(1961-01-26) 26 January 1961
OccupationsJournalist, 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.

Education and early career

Urban, whose father Garri came from Poland,[2] is the younger brother of film and television director Stuart Urban. He grew up in Wimbledon, south London.[3]

Urban attended the London School of Economics,[4] prior to which he served in the Royal Tank Regiment as an officer holding a Short Service Limited Commission lasting 1 year.[5] The Short Service Limited Commission was a paid pre-university gap-year commission offered by the British Army.[6] He subsequently served four years in the Territorial Army.[7]

Correspondent career

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 held from 1995 until leaving the BBC at the end of May 2024.[8][9][10] He has since written on diplomacy, defence and security for The Sunday Times.[11] In his years on Newsnight, he reported on the Gulf War, the Bosnian War, War in Kosovo, the War in Afghanistan and War in Iraq.[12] 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.[13]

Military historian

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.[14] 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".[14]

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.[15][16]

Books

References

  1. Date information sourced from Library of Congress Authorities data, via corresponding Library of Congress Linked Data Service: linked authority record n85157882.
  2. Urban, Mark (2018). The Skripal Files. Macmillan. p. 209.
  3. Kelly, Liam (3 June 2025). "Mark Urban: 'So much coverage of conflict is about victimhood'". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 7 May 2026.
  4. "BBC Two - University Challenge, Christmas 2024, St Andrews v LSE". BBC. Retrieved 27 July 2026.
  5. "Mark Urban – Tank". Dorchester Literary Festival. Retrieved 27 July 2026.
  6. "Second Further supplementary memorandum from the Ministry of Defence". Select Committee on Defence – Written Evidence. House of Commons. 23 June 2008. Retrieved 22 October 2026.
  7. "The Royal Armouries" (PDF) (Press release). Department for Culture, Media and Sport. 1 August 2012. Retrieved 22 October 2026.
  8. BBC News 2. Mark Urban bio. BBC Two. Retrieved 13 February 2010.
  9. Mark Urban Archived 27 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Debrett's People of Today
  10. "Newsnight's Mark Urban to leave BBC after more than 30 years". Jersey Evening Post. Press Association. 14 April 2024. Retrieved 22 October 2026.
  11. "Mark Urban – Honorary Graduate Oration" (PDF). University of Warwick. 18 July 2025. Retrieved 22 October 2026.
  12. "Mark Urban on Newsnight's coverage of peace and war". 2 February 2005. Retrieved 7 May 2026.
  13. Mark Urban: Salisbury poisoning: Skripals 'were under Russian surveillance, BBC, 4 July 2018
  14. Stalker, John (31 May 1992). "No surrender". The Sunday Times. p. 7 [Books].
  15. Grey, Stephen (28 February 2010). "In the line of fire; Taking the fight to the enemy; A ground-breaking, often chilling account draws on unprecedented access at the highest level to investigate the SAS's operations in Iraq". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 23 January 2021 – via Stephen Grey.
  16. Evans, Michael; Coghlan, Tom (8 February 2010). "Special Forces chief battles to stop book revealing details of operations in Iraq". The Times. Retrieved 23 January 2021.