Ali bin Suleiman was a major antagonist in Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan. He is the younger brother of militia leader Mousa bin Suleiman.
Biography[]
Ali was born in Lebanon sometime during the late 1970s. The younger brother of Mousa bin Suleiman, he sketched drawings in his spare time. In 1983 in Lebanon, Ali and Mousa became orphans after their hometown was bombed and their mother killed in the Lebanon War. The brothers survived the bombing, but Ali was pinned under burning timber. Mousa saved him but badly burned his hands. Likewise, Ali's legs were burned as well. The two became refugees and made their way to Paris and became French citizens. They were taken in by Omer who raised them.
While France had taken the Suleiman brothers in, their society wasn't as welcoming. The brothers suffered a lot of hardships being Lebanese and Muslim. In 2001, Mousa was forced to become a falafel cook to support both of them after his application to work at a major bank had been rejected. One day, Mousa met up with his brother to chat. Ali showed off a pistol he was given by a friend. He was then yelled at by Mousa and told to hide and get rid of the gun. Later that day, both brothers were hanging out on a park bench. Ali was smoking marijuana and two Paris officers noticed the brothers. Fearing that the cops would discover Ali's gun, he pushed the police and distracted them while Ali escaped. Mousa was then jailed for several months for assaulting a police officer. Ali frequently visited his brother in jail where he had become a radicalized Islamic extremest. During his time in jail, Mousa vowed to one day unite the warring Muslim factions.
After Mousa was released from jail, Ali joined him in Syria as his brother started recruiting men to serve his cause. To fund their organization, Mousa began collecting money and converting it into digital credits within cell phone cards. Pver the years, Mousa began to formulate a grand plan to punish the western world for mistreating him and Muslims through bio-terrorism. Alie and Mousa later visited Liberia and paid off a local to help them recover a body contaminated with a resistant strain of Ebola, the EVD-27 strain. After getting the body, they used faked documents that identified them as French nationals, here to collect and transport the body of a relative away. The body wasn't questioned and the two took the body to Azerbaijan, where they had former Soviet scientists perform black biology to weaponize Ebola. With the help of Ibrahim, they established their financial network in Yemen and continued to gather new members for the militia.
Six months later in 2018, CIA financial analyst Jack Ryan discovered Mousa's Yemen account making several suspicious SWIFT network transactions, amounting to $9 million. Ryan suspected the account belonged to Mousa who was largely unknown to the United States at the time. After Ryan had Teresa freeze Mousa's accounts, Mousa and Omar Rahbini traveled to Yemen to meet with their bank manager. After the meeting, both men were kidnapped by Matice and taken to a black site dubbed "Cobalt". Ali and the militia later learned of Mousa's location and devised a plan to infiltrate the site. Posing as a corpse, Ali had the militia trade himself and four other corpses with U.S. forces at the site to be looked over and identified. Once inside the morgue, Ali recovered a hidden assault rifle from inside one of the corpses. He then proceeded to the interrogation rooms as the militia attacked the site to act as a distraction. After killing one of the guards, Ali took another hostage and ordered him to take him to the prisoners. Ali was first taken to Omar but killed him and ordered the guard to take him to Mousa. Upon reaching the other interrogation room, Mousa warned Ali of Jack Ryan who had been waiting behind the door. Ali killed the guard and attempted to shoot Ryan, only to be disarmed. Both men then fought one another. Ali was eventually able to overpower Ryan by slashing him in the ribs with a knife and getting assistance from Mousa. With no other options, Ryan pulled a grenade from the guard's corpse and pulled the pin. He then dared Ali to shoot him and risk the grenade detonating. Mousa convinced Ali to spare Ryan as he could tell that he was not bluffing and the pair left the interrogation room. They were then extracted by the militia and taken to the Gulf of Aden.
Once at the wharf, Mousa tasked Ali with traveling to Paris to recover SIM cards containing $10,000 apiece and to orchestrate a terrorist attack. Before departing on the boat, Ali asked his brother why he was being sent and Mousa told him that he was the only one he trusted. They then embraced and bid farewell. Prior to his arrival in Paris, Ali arranged for members of the militia to murder a priest named Father Morel. This was because Morel's funeral would allow them to unleash Sarin gas within a crowded church to serve as part of a recruiting campaign for the militia. After arriving in Paris, Ali met and paid a man for the SIM cards. He then went to an apartment occupied by several other members of the militia. While waiting for the funeral to launch their attack on the church, Ali was warned that the police were on their way to raid the apartment. They then rush to hide everything and Ali offers an explosive vest with a dead-man switch to have one of the militia members sacrifice themselves to cover their escape. A women takes the vest as the other members ready their weapons. The police arrive at the apartment but Ali and his friends open fire. Ali gets hit and manages to escape out the window. He goes through another apartment and takes the stairs out of the building. Jack Ryan had accompanied the police during the raid and noticed blood on the banister while going down the stairs. On the street, Ryan saw Ali leaving the area and pulled out his gun to pursue. Ryan had Ali in his line of sight but freezes before he can pull the trigger. The woman with the explosive vest was killed, resulting in the detonating of the bomb.
The explosion allowed Ali to travel to the Muslim neighborhood known as the 93 and took refuge at the home of Omer. Omer patched Ali's would and allowed him to stay the night. The next morning, Ali was awoken by Omer's children. He was soon greeted by Omer who told him how lucky he was to have the bullet miss his pancreas by a few centimetres. Omer than asked Ali why he had come to his home instead of a hospital. Ali avoided the question and asked Omer where his wife Dalia was. Omer informed him of her passing and made note of Ali's sketch book. Omer then pulled out a book where he kept drawings that Ali had made for him as a child as well as picture's of Ali's family before they were killed.
A few hours later, Ali pulled out a video game called "Au Bout de L'honneur" while Omer was helping his sons and used it to communicate with Mousa. Through the chatroom in the game, Ali told his brother that the French and Americans were looking for him. Mousa tells him that he has to leave Paris because if he gets caught then it's all over. He then tells Ali to leave no witnesses. Shaken by what his brother has ordered him to do, Ali turns and looks at Omer. Unable to kill Omer and his family, Ali asks him to borrow his car and quickly leaves the city. Soon afterwards, Jack Ryan and French police arrive at Omer's apartment, having learned from one of Omer's sons that Ali had been staying there. Ryan finds the game Ali had used to communicate with his brother and then joins Sandrine Arnaud with questioning Omer. Omer tells them that Ali had taken his car out of the city, prompting them to use the car's GPS to track Ali.
While driving in the Alpes, Ali gets pulled over by the police for speeding but is let go with a warning. Ryan and Sandrine wait in a car as they follow Ali. Ali continues to lose blood while driving and begins to run low on fuel. He stops at a gas station and enters the restroom to treat his room. Upon exiting, however, he sees Jack Ryan inspecting his car. Ryan and Sandrine had lost track of Ali and coincidentally stopped at the same gas station as Ali to refuel. Ali pulls out his gun to kill Ryan but is noticed by Sandrine who warns Ryan and fires at Ali. Unfortunately, Sandrine gets shot by a policeman unaware of the situation. Ali then makes his way across the road into the forest. Ryan retrieves his weapon from the car and follows Ali's blood trail into the forest. Ali gets the jump on Ryan and begins to strangle Ryan. Ryan hits his wounded side and Ali rolls off of him. Ryan manages to grab his gun again and points it at Ali. He then asks Ali where the next terrorist attack will be. Ali goes to reach for something in his back pocket and Ryan shoots and kills him.
Legacy[]
Despite his death, the militia still carried out their attack on the church, killing 306 people with the Sarin gas. As planned, the attack made Mousa and the militia known throughout the world and served as a propaganda tool to recruit new members to their cause. Jack Ryan later used the "Au Bout de L'honneur" video game to pose as Ali to contact Mousa and request assistance from the militia. While Mousa was initially fooled, Ryan fails his test. This is because whenever Mousa told his brother "peace be with you", Ali would reply with a snarky comment. Exposed, Ryan revealed his identity to Mousa. Remembering Ryan from the black site, Mousa told him that he would find him and avenge his brother.
Appearances[]
- Pilot (First appearance)
- French Connection
- Black 22
- The Wolf
- End of Honor (Flashback)
- Sources and Methods (Flashback)
- The Boy (Photo)