Our intrepid reporter Harry Miller has been invited to join London regiments in the most dangerous place in the world, Afganistan, to report on Britain’s involvement in the ongoing conflict against the Taliban.

Afghanistan - the base for extremist aggression against the west and one of the hottest places on earth right now.

So why I am going? With just hours to go before I fly out I am beginning to wonder why myself?.

After a year of planning I have been invited to tag along with a host of other journalists to one of the most dangerous places in the world.

A briefing at the Ministry of Defence main building in Whitehall tells me what to expect. It is going to be hot, and dangerous. Well I could have told them that.

I am, according to the MoD, going to see how the reconstruction effort is going and see what security arrangements have been put in place ahead of the presidential elections in August.

The Army is expecting an upsurge in attacks from insurgents trying to destroy another attempt to cement the democratic process in a country that has seen on-off wars for the past 40 years.

As a peacekeeping force, I am told, the British forces have been welcomed by the local populace. More and more children are attending mainstream schools, not just the boys being taught at madrassas (religious schools), and women are now wearing make up, something forbidden by their former medieval rulers.

On Sunday, I fly from RAF Brize Norton by old BOAC Tristar to Kandahar.

I am joining 2 Rifles, a regiment that recruits out of the South of England to meet soldiers from the local area and see how life in the desert is and how war is really effecting them.

I have been told that at Camp Bastion I will be kept in the lap of luxury.

My tent will be air conditioned, vital to combat the 45 degree heat, there is a Starbucks for coffee and a KFC if rations get a bit of a bore.

However, the time I will be spending at a Forward Operating Base (FOB) will be less than comfortable. Sporadic attacks, indirect fire (IDF) and rations make FOBs less than appealing.

My plan is to speak to as many soldiers from the borough and find out what life in Britain's modern army is really like. Are they well equipped? How do they combat the heat? Have they ever actually seen a Taliban fighter?

Much like George Orwell's 1984, the UK, since 2001, seems to be in a state of perma-war where the line between enemy combatant and ally blurs on a monthly basis.

At the start of this Afghan war the public was told the soldiers were hunting Al-Qaeda. The organisation, named by the US, who were responsible for the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York.

The attacks on that day claimed more than 3,000 lives.

So far, nearly 20,000 Afghan civilians and soldiers have been killed in the fighting.

The new remit for the Army is the stabilisation of the country and national security, our national security.

I will be seeing how this is done and what the regiment uses to do it.

The idea, much like Iraq, is to train the former Afghan militias into the Afghan National Army who will take over when Britain finally deem the country safe enough to leave it to the Afghan people to control.

Unfortunately since the Taliban has been pushed out of the country and into the tribal region at the border with Pakistan, militant attacks have increased there.

Follow my journey through the badlands of Afghanistan and into the heart of Taliban country at Croydonguardian.co.uk