using android gradle plugin to run aapt

using android gradle plugin to run aapt

I have a custom gradle build file and i need to run aapt with various
params (to extract package names and recompile resources in a custom made
resource directory).
For the time being i'm iterating over the directories of
../sdk/build-tools/* and taking the latest dir (most recent). However i
know that there's a gradle android plugin and that it has inside an aapt
task or a method to control it.
Can i apply the android plugin and use only the aapt command in my task/
groovy class ?
10x.