AS2: XML Tags

I have a quick question that I am not 100% sure on. In my program I need flash to recognise if the object it is pulling in from XML is an: image/sound/mvie or animation.

In XML the tag looks like this:

 
<mult_file type= "image" alt="alt text">intro.jpg</mult_file>

what I need flash to do is read the file type of it - I know how to put nodes in but how would I get it to find the type?

Thanks for any help.