Dubai, October 14: Osama bin Laden is alive and will appear on a videotape soon, a man who identified himself as a senior al Qaeda member told an Arabic weekly. ``Sheik Osama is alive and in good health. He has gained more weight due to security precautions and his inability to move a lot as you will notice in his next appearance,'' Abdel Rahman al-Rashed told the London-based Arabic-language magazine al Majalla in remarks published Friday.
Mahmoud Khalil, a correspondent for the weekly, told the Reporters Sunday that he conducted the interview over a week in October through the internet. He said it took him more than a month to arrange it.
Khalil, who is based in Dubai, said al-Rashed told him he was a Kuwaiti national.

``I used to send him one question every day and wait for his answer to send the other question,'' Khalil said. He refused to say how he got in touch with al-Rashed.
In the interview, al-Rashed said bin Laden, whose al-Qaeda terror network is blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington, is alive and will appear soon on a videotape with a new statement. He didn't elaborate.
Al-Rashed was quoted as saying that bin laden chose not to appear on a videotape on the first anniversary of the attacks, because he did not want people to ``tie (his) victory to his character.''
``Bin Laden is completely indifferent to all claims that he was killed. He does not choose the time of his appearances to deny such claims,'' al-Rashed said, according to the magazine. Bureau Report