Was Suleiman tipped off?

Spoilers ahead

In the first season of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan (2018) in episode 7...

...there is a plan to go into Suleiman's compound and take him and his men out and rescue the American doctors and Suleiman's son. As things are gearing up, we see Suleiman's daughter who is in a safe-house in the US contact her brother who is with Suleiman in the compound and let him know that she and their mother are alive and safe in the US. Suleiman then comes into the bedroom and sees the message on the game device.

It then cuts to the soldiers going into the compound only to find that everyone is gone. We assume that Suleiman and his men have left because they saw the message and got spooked or somehow knew that the soldiers were coming and decided to ditch the base. They do however leave the hostages behind who are rescued and taken back to the US.

However we learn in the next episode that the doctors have been infected by the Ebola strain and it appears that the plan all along was to infect them, let them be rescued, and come into contact with the POTUS and others, thus spreading the virus.

So my question is, if this was the plan all along, then were they really tipped off by the daughter's message to her brother or did they plan all along for the soldiers to come? And if not then how did they know they were coming? And how did they know they wouldn't simply be hit by a drone as was the plan originally from the US war room?

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Best Answer

So my question is, if this was the plan all along?

Firstly, it seems clear that infecting the doctors was the plan all the time. There is no other reason for keeping the doctors alive (that we see) and, more importantly, providing them with food, water and medicine any one of which would have provided the infection vector.

...then were they really tipped off by the daughter's message to her brother or did they plan all along for the soldiers to come?

It's a little unclear but I'd lean towards the the fact that they always intended the doctors to be rescued. They may have been tipped by the daughters communication (especially the disclosure that she's now in the US) but I suspect that this would have happened anyway.

...And if not then how did they know they were coming? And how did they know they wouldn't simply be hit by a drone as was the plan originally from the US war room?

A drone strike / air strike would devasted the compound and would have killed the doctors (which included US doctors...one of whom is a friend of the sitting President) and there is no way that this would have been agreed to if politicians are involved in the decision-making process.

Mousa makes no effort to conceal his location, walking around where drones/satellites can see his face AND does the same for the doctor, specifically, the President's friend. That seems reckless or, more likely, deliberate.

All of this would factor into Mousa's plan.