One of my favorite Iraq bloggers, Nibras Kazimi, now has a post up at Talisman's Gate exploring the background of Mashhadani. It looks like there might be some substance to claims that Baghdadi and Mashhadani are one and the same.
Kazimi makes a disclaimer that he has no absolute confirmation, but his digging into Mashhadani's background uncovers information that meshes with other rumored details of Baghdadi's past--namely that he is a Salifist who had been arrested under Saddam's regime, and that his Islamic pedigree claims descent from the Prophet's grandson, al-Hussein bin Ali. According to Kazimi:
"This is the best I could do to tie all this up together, according to my sources: al-Baghdadi’s full name is Khalid Khalil Ibrahim al-Mashhadani. He is in his early 40s, and is known as ‘Abu Zaid’. He had been a Salafist under Saddam, and was briefly detained then over some unknown infraction....Khalid’s family belongs to the Albu Mu’alleg branch of the Mashhadanis. The Mashhadani’s believe that they are descended from Al-Hussein bin Ali, which would make them Hashemites."
Interestingly, Kazimi goes on to note:
"Both Iraq’s Vice President, Tariq al-Hashemi, and the Speaker of the Parliament, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, who are the leading Sunnis in the Iraqi government, belong to the Mashhadabi tribe. I wonder how it would have passed their notice that one of their own is allegedly the head of the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Qaeda’s candidate caliph."
