DUBAI, March 6 (Reuters) - The leader of al Qaeda in Afghanistan has urged more Muslims to join and finance the group's war there, saying Western troops are close to defeat.

"Your brothers in Afghanistan are waiting for you and longing to (welcome) you," Mustafa Abu al-Yazid said in an audio recording posted on an Islamist Web site.

"The time for reaping the fruit of victory and empowerment has come ... The infidel enemy has been badly wounded at the hands of your brothers and is close to its demise so assist your brothers to slaughter him," added the militant leader, speaking with an Egyptian-sounding accent.

U.S. and NATO troops are fighting a fierce insurgency by al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan. A top al Qaeda commander there was killed in a suspected U.S. missile strike in neighbouring Pakistan in January.

In the recording, Abu al-Yazid said Muslim men must not look for permission from "apostate leaders" to join others fighting in countries such as Afghanistan, the Palestinian territories, Chechnya, Somalia, Algeria and Iraq.

He argued that joining and financing jihad, or holy war, was a binding duty for every able Muslim man after "infidels" invaded Islamic land.

"Only a loser ... who ridicules himself, disobeys God, and loves the lower life would let jihad down," he said, adding that the fighters needed doctors and electronics specialists in particular.

Thousands of Arab Muslims, including Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, went to Afghanistan in the 1980s to help eject the troops of the former Soviet Union and then bring the Taliban to power.

The United States led a coalition that invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban after al Qaeda's Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. cities, when Taliban leaders refused to hand over bin Laden and his top lieutenants to Washington for trial. (Reporting by Inal Ersan, editing by Mark Trevelyan)

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