DUBAI, July 10 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The satellite television network Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC) late Tuesday, July 9, broadcast an audiotape from what it says is a top Al-Qaeda official reaffirming that Osama bin Laden and deposed Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar are “in good health.”

“I want to reassure those impassioned with the jihad that ... Sheikh Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar and the symbols of jihad, including Ayman Al-Zawahri and Sheikh Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, are in good health,” said Abu Laith Al-Libi in the broadcast, which MBC said was made several weeks ago, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Ayman Al-Zawahri is considered the number two in the Al-Qaeda network, whose spokesman is Sulaiman Abu Ghaith.

“I want also to reassure the mujahedin about the fact that Mullah Omar has been able to assemble the mujahedin who have been scattered and who are in the process of regrouping,” the broadcast said.

Abu Laith Al-Libi also gives details of a battle several weeks ago in Afghanistan between U.S. troops and Al-Qaeda fighters.

The entire recording is also carried by some internet sites, MBC said.

Abu Laith Al-Libi is a Libyan who joined the Afghan mujahedin, in the 1980s to fight Soviet occupation. He is known for his expertise in bomb making and in guerrilla warfare.

On the situation in Afghanistan, Abu Laith Al-Libi said members of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda have launched “a new phase in the war against the Americans, founded on a guerrilla war and a war of assassinations.

“Thank God, we have been able to destroy the bases, the munitions depots,” he said, adding that he had also “seen with my own eyes between 150 and 200 American soldiers killed” in the battle which took place several weeks ago in the Shah Kut region in Afghanistan.

At the same time, Algerian daily newspaper, Al-Youm, published Tuesday an interview with Abu Ghaith, BBC’s online news service reported.

Abu Ghaith gave the interview via e-mail in which he blasted America and vowed to attack U.S. and Jewish targets.

Abu Ghaith was quoted as declaring that Al-Qaeda’s military, intelligence, and economic infrastructures had not been affected by Washington’s so-called “war on terrorism”, BBC said.

The newspaper quotes him as saying that Al-Qaeda was even more determined to continue its work and, as he put it, “to avenge the blood of innocent people.”

Abu Ghaith went on to say that Al-Qaeda would not stop attacking America as long as the U.S. persisted in “its unjust policy against Muslims and in favor of Jews and Christians.”

Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said in Kabul last week he believed Bin Laden, whom the U.S. suspects was behind the September 11 attacks on the U.S., and Mullah Omar are alive, but their whereabouts are a mystery.