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Audiobooks Narrated by Mark Urban
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'One of the few truly authentic accounts of the modern SAS outside the world of fiction.' THE TIMES
Following the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq in 2003, the SAS launched one of the most intense and secretive operations in its history: Task Force Black.
Operating out 'The Station' in Bagdad, Task Force Black's role was to hunt down senior members of Al-Qaeda operating in Iraq. Using the latest weaponry, combining with other international special forces units, the group waged a sustained covert campaign against terrorist groups across the county. Combining intelligence with brute force, the SAS went on the attack and had multiple successes, including the killing of several key Al-Qaeda commanders.
BBC journalist Mark Urban uncovers the sensational story of this operation and the extraordinary men who carried it out.
PRAISE FOR TASK FORCE BLACK
'That Mark Urban, a BBC journalist also known for excellent recent books on the Napoleonic Wars, has been able to tell this story is a testament to his determination and investigative skill. Few reporters succeed in cultivating any sources within the closed world of the British special forces; Urban has found dozens who have spoken with unprecedented candour. The result is gripping and troubling in equal measure and an invaluable addition to the increasingly comprehensive literature on the Iraq war.' Jason Burke, OBSERVER **
'Urban's book, Task Force Black, deserves to do well. It is the first account, as full as it can be under the circumstances, of the clandestine war waged by the SAS and their Royal Marines equivalent, the SBS, alongside US Delta Force in the height of that murderous war' Kim Sengupta, INDEPENDENT
This program is read by the author.
The explosive story of the poisoning of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and what it reveals about the growing clandestine conflict between the West and Russia.
Salisbury, England: March 4, 2018.
Slumped on a bench, paralyzed and barely able to breathe, were a former Russian intelligence officer named Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. Sergei had been living a quiet life in England since 2010, when he was expelled from Russia as part of a spy swap; he had been serving a lengthy prison sentence for working secretly for the British intelligence agency MI6. On this Sunday afternoon, he and his daughter had just finished lunch at a local restaurant when they started to feel faint. Within minutes they were close to death.
The Skripals had been poisoned, not with a familiar toxin but with Novichok, a deadly nerve agent developed in southern Russia. Was this a message from the Kremlin that traitors would not escape violent death, even on British soil? As Sergei and Yulia fought for their lives, and the British government and their allies sought answers, relations between the West and Russia descended to a new low.
The Skripal Files is a remarkable and definitive account of Sergei Skripal's story, which lays bare the new spy war between Russia and the West. Mark Urban, the diplomatic and defense editor for the BBC, met with Skripal in the months before his poisoning, learning about his career in Russian military intelligence, how he became a British agent, his imprisonment in Russia, and the events that led to his release. Skripal's first-hand accounts and experiences reveal the high stakes of a new spy game that harks back to the chilliest days of the Cold War.
CHOSEN AS ONE OF THE BEST POLITICS BOOKS OF 2018 BY THE SUNDAY TIMES
'A scrupulous piece of reporting, necessary, timely and very sobering' John Le Carré
Who is Sergei Skripal?
Agent. Prisoner. Target.
The Skripal Files tells the story of Sergei Skripal, the complex and mysterious victim from this year's most explosive news story. Mark Urban interviewed Skripal in the months before the poisoning and explains how Skripal's life has come to define the new spy war between Russia and the West.
4 March 2018, Salisbury, England.
Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were enjoying a rare and peaceful Sunday spent together, completely unaware that they had been poisoned with the deadly nerve agent Novichok. Hours later both were found slumped on a park bench close to death.
Following their attempted murders on British soil, Russia was publicly accused by the West of carrying out the attack, marking a new low for international relations between the two since the end of the Cold War.
The Skripal Files is the definitive account of how Skripal's story fits into the wider context of the new spy war between Russia and the West. The book explores the time Skripal spent as a spy in the Russian military intelligence, how he was turned to work as an agent by MI6, his imprisonment in Russia and his eventual release as part of a spy-swap that would bring him to Salisbury where, on that fateful day, he and his daughter found themselves fighting for their lives.
'With regard to traitors, they will kick the bucket on their own, I assure you . . . Whatever thirty pieces of silver those people may have gotten, they will stick in their throat.'
Vladimir Putin, 2010
