Mark Urban blogging for the BBC from Afghanistan

Bit snowed under (not literally – it’s cold-ish here at the moment, but snow is so rare in the UK it usually brings the country to a standstill) with PhD work so afraid blogging will be a bit more sporadic over the coming weeks, if not months. (Pop by again in October 2010!) 

Just thought I’d document the fact that Mark Urban, BBC Newsnight’s War and Peace blogger, is currently in Afghanistan. He says he is in the field with US troops and will send updates from operations in Helmand soon.

In a previous post from US Camp Leatherneck, Urban has been trying, rather unsuccessfully it appears, to garner some reaction to President Obama’s troop surge:

"In truth though, I cannot say that I have overheard anybody at this camp…spontaneously discussing the troop uplift in their tent or chow hall.

As is often the case with an international "news event", we have had to go soliciting opinions on this."

Urban has also been blogging from Camp Bastion and quotes "a middle ranking" British Officer as saying that walking away from Afghanistan "would be disastrous for the Army". He notes that with more than 10,000 troops deployed, Britain is "reaching the limits of what it can commit to Afghanistan".