Zarqawi - Zorro?

A suicide bomber from Saudi Arabia, who survived a failed attempt to blow up the Jordanian mission Baghdad in December, alleges that Iraqi police may have captured, and then released, the most wanted terrorist in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, two months ago. Both U.S. and Iraqi officials could not confirm the claims made by the suicide bomber.

[...]

Mr. Shaiyah says he was in Ramadi during the November U.S.-led offensive in Fallujah.

[...]

"Do you know what has happened to Zarqawi and where he is?" an Iraqi investigator asked Mr. Shaiyah.

He answered, "I don't know, but I heard from some of my mujahadeen brothers that Iraqi police had captured Zarqawi in Fallujah." Mr. Shaiyah says he then heard that the police let the terrorist go because they had failed to recognize him.

[...]

And, during a press conference Saturday, Iraq's interior minister, Falah al-Naqib declined to answer a reporter's question about the allegation and rumors that Zarqawi had been arrested.

REPORTER: "Can you just clarify a bit what you were just saying or not saying about Zarqawi?"

NAQIB: "I wouldn't like to comment for the time being. Let us see."

REPORTER: "Does that mean you have him in custody?"

NAQIB: "Pardon?"

REPORTER: "Does that mean he is in custody?"

NAQIB: "No comments."

On an Internet Web site Monday, a militant group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed that it had carried out a suicide car bombing earlier in the day, near the office of interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's Iraqi National Accord Party.

The bombing followed an audio tape message, allegedly made by Zarqawi a day earlier, warning that he would wage an all-out war to derail Iraqi elections next Sunday.

[...]

Meanwhile, U.S. and Iraqi forces in Fallujah say they are searching the city for Zarqawi, after receiving reports that he may have returned to his former stronghold. The U.S. Marines say they are taking the report seriously and are on heightened alert.
  VOA article

If this guy actually exists (the sometimes one-legged, sometimes dead Zarqawi), he must surely be something of a Zorro or Swamp Fox to the Iraqi resistance by now. I guess that's the danger in using a bogey man to blame everything on - too much press and you turn him into a folk or revolutionary hero.