BAGHDAD — Abu Omar al-Baghdadi was captured again several weeks ago. By now it’s old hat. Mr. Baghdadi is the leader of the most zealous group of jihadists fighting in Iraq, and he has been reported captured and killed several times before. As many times, he has also been declared not real.

Usually, whether a man is in custody is a fairly straightforward proposition: He is, or he is not. But even casual Iraqologists would find the notion of a straightforward proposition here amusingly naïve, especially in a case as politically loaded as this one.

Politics here plays out in endless equivocations and manipulations that turn even hard facts  demographics, borders and crime statistics  into uncertainties. So the tale of Abu Omar is worth keeping in mind as the jockeying intensifies for the all-important national elections to be held next January.

Mr. Baghdadi has long been a symbolic figure, regardless of whether he exists.

For jihadists, he is the purist who fights under the banner of the Islamic State of Iraq, the would-be caliph of a rising Islamic empire. For the authorities, he is the snake’s head of the organization in Iraq most closely involved with Al Qaeda.