Al-Jazeera satellite channel on Wednesday aired a videotape purportedly showing armed al Qaeda fighters during a military exercise and attacking a position in Afghanistan.
A short sequence of film, which the station said it obtained in Islamabad, initially shows a man, identified as "Abu Laith, the Libyan, an al Qaeda official in Afghanistan", addressing militiamen.
During the night-time meeting, a bearded and bespectacled Abu Laith, who is wearing a turban, is seen surrounded by men seated on the ground "in Afghanistan or in a tribal region of Pakistan, before a new day of training," Al Jazeera's Islamabad correspondent Ahmed Zidane said.
Dressed in grey tunics and pants, traditionally worn in the region, as they train, some of the men are also seen wearing the red and white keffiyeh (headdress), generally worn by Gulf Arabs and more notably by Saudis.
Equipped with arms including rocket-launchers, they conduct live-fire exercises in a mountainous area. The channel cannot say where or when the footage is filmed.
The video then shows night-time images of "Arab and Afghan fighters attacking, in two groups, an Afghan government position."