Iraqi Interior Minister Falah al-Nakib claims to have Al Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi surrounded (via The Jawa Report).

“We have not arrested al-Zarqawi,” Interior Minister Falah al-Nakib said during a news conference. “He is surrounded in a certain area, and we hope for the best. This operation is ongoing. We hope that the situation will be completely different in Iraq at the end of this year.”

Al-Nakib said al-Zarqawi was moving in “more than one area,” but declined to provide more details.

Whether this means Zarqawi is actually surrounded in a house or a specific area or whether this is just strong wording by the Iraqi Interior Minister talking on how the Iraqi forces are “surrounding” terrorists is unclear at this moment. The optimist in me hopes Zarqawi is inside of a house and will come out crying for mercy recorded on video tape for the world to see. The cynic in me believes the Interior Minister has taken a cue from Baghdad Bob.

Update:
The Associated Press is reporting the same quote from al-Nakib (al-Naqib). Well, almost.

He added that Iraq’s most-wanted terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was “surrounded in more than one area, and we hope for the best. He’s moving between more than one area.”

Who misquoted al-Naqib? Most likely it was Sofia News Agency and it was probably due to a translation error. This does shed more light on the statement though. It appears that the al-Naqib said Zarqawi was surrounded because there are Iraqi forces looking for him in several areas. It’s not the surrounded like most of us are familiar with; it’s the surrounded as in “We have soldiers around those areas he might be hiding in.”

This is a let down.

Hyscience linked with Zarqawi Surrounded?