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Why Ba'alzamon is really Ishamael

All the Forsaken seem to think that Ba'alzamon was Ishamael. e.g., see Mog's thoughts in TSR: 46, 759-60, Veils, 526.

Verin reads a scrap of paper to Egwene when giving her the twisted stone ter'angreal: "Heart of the Dark. Ba'alzamon. Name hidden within name shrouded by name. Secret buried within secret cloaked by secret. Betrayer of Hope. Ishamael betrays all hope. Truth burns and sears. Hope fails before truth. A lie is our shield. Who can stand against the Heart of the Dark? Who can face the Betrayer of Hope? Soul of shadow, Soul of the Shadow, he is". (TDR: 21, 237, A World of Dreams, 187)

(TDR: 56, 672-3, People of the Dragon, 575-6):
Eg, Ny, Mat, El and Moiraine are discussing that Rand could not have killed the Dark One himself, because a man's body was left. They speculate that Ba'alzamon was Ishamael.

Ba'alzamon tells Rand:
"I stood at Lews Therin Kinslayer's shoulder when he did the deed that named him. It was I who told him to kill his wife, and his children, and all his blood, and every living person who loved him or whom he loved. It was I who gave him the moment of sanity to know what he had done." Cf. TEotW's Prologue. -- TEotW: 14, 204-5, The Stag and Lion, 171

Lanfear makes some comment that "Ishamael thinks he controls events, but I do." The only male Forsaken taking an active hand in events is Ba'alzamon. The rest are either still bound, or are skulking around in various kingdoms.

(TSR: Glossary, 987, entry "Ba'alzamon", 686):
"In the Trolloc tongue, 'Heart of the Dark.' Believed by most, erroneously, to be the Trolloc name for the Dark One."

"How long since he had seen an Aes Sedai.... He was not sure she had been sane. She claimed one of the Forsaken was only partly trapped, or maybe not at all; Ishamael still touched the world, she said." (TSR: 26, The Dedicated, 301?)

Moghedien says:
"The other [Forsaken in Tear beside Be'lal] sounds like Ishamael to me. All his pride at being only half-caught, whatever the price -- there was less human left in him than any of us when I saw him again; I think he half-believed he was the Great Lord of the Dark -- all his three thousand years of machinations, and it comes to an untaught boy hunting him down." She states right out that Ish was only half bound, and as well confirms Egwene's guess that Ish = Ba'alzamon. (TSR: 46, 760, Veils, 526)