Suhail Akbar is a supporting antagonist in the Left Behind series and Left Behind: The Kids. He was a prominent member of the Global Community and was hired by Nicolae Carpathia during the last half of the Tribulation period to be his Security and Intelligence chief in control of Peacekeepers and Morale Monitors throughout all the world regions. Jim Hickman was his predecessor. In contrast to the ineptitude of Hickman, upon hearing the appointment of Akbar, David Hassid feared he would be competent enough to stymie the Tribulation Force. Akbar was characterized as a man who is reticent and slow to voice an opinion, but someone who is loyal and effective behind the scenes. Earlier in his career, he attended the Madrid Military School, and had an overlapping tenure there with Nelson Stefanich.
Biography[]
After the Rapture[]
In The Rise of False Messiahs, Akbar is described as being in his early forties (during the second Bowl Judgment) when he called Chang Wong into his office to interview him concerning the identity of the mole working within the Global Community Palace in New Babylon. In the Dramatic Audio of the Kids Series, Akbar had a more visible role within the Global Community before he was appointed to be the Global Community's Security and Intelligence Chief shortly after Carpathia's resurrection. While Lionel Washington and Judd Thompson Jr. were watching the arrival of Nicolae Carpathia along with his cabinet at the Temple Mount during the onset of the first Bowl Judgment, when Lionel saw Akbar, he said that at the training grounds for the Morale Monitors, the dining area had Akbar's picture up that it was like a cult. Since Lionel was kidnapped to be inducted as a Morale Monitor and the training grounds were completely leveled during the Wrath of the Lamb earthquake, this means that Akbar had a high position within the Global Community security apparatus before the Earthquake. Akbar delivered a message through a courier to Commander Terrel Blancka, the leader of Morale Monitor program, to not let any harm fall upon Darrion Stahley. Conrad Graham, then a Morale Monitor, remarked that Akbar is "Carpathia's right-hand man". Moreover, Akbar personally executed Blancka with a pistol for letting Darrion Stahley get away. During the third Trumpet Judgment, Akbar traveled to a military installation in North Dakota on Carpathia's order to ensure that the Wormwood meteor was dealt with through a full nuclear missile strike. Akbar personally delivered the orders to launch the missiles, but the meteor disintegrated before the missile hit it. Akbar also remarked then that he lives in a Palace in New Babylon and that he did not travel to North Dakota where the sun shines two weeks per year to hear the officer's excuses.
In Desecration, he received his mark of loyalty along with his fellow members of the Global Community cabinet – Walter Moon and Viv Ivins – at the Temple Mount a day before Carpathia committed the abomination of desolation. For his mark, he got a giant black 42 that dominated his forehead.
Director Akbar was perspicacious enough to immediately infer that there was a mole working in the Palace. Akbar was discussing with Carpathia in the presence of Leon Fortunato the identity of Micah and his companion. They were identified as Jack Jensen/Cameron Williams and Chaim Rosenzweig based on fingerprints found in the rooms in the King David Hotel that they were staying in and a wallet left behind that had the identification of Jack Jensen. (Jack Jensen is an assumed identity of Cameron Williams that worked as a Global Community Peacekeeper in order to infiltrate the Global Community for Tribulation Force operations in Greece.) Akbar mistakenly referred to Williams as Carpathia's first media liaison but corrected himself as he was Carpathia's second media guy. Chang Wong heard this conversation through a bug planted on the Phoenix 216 and immediately deleted any electronic records of Jack Jensen. When Akbar noticed that the digital personnel files of Jack Jensen and Cameron Williams disappeared from the central database while he was discussing his findings, he concluded that there was a mole in the palace and (incorrectly) someone leaking information to the mole on the Phoenix 216. The search for the mole was ultimately fruitless since it falsely implicated two Indian stewards on the plane and Chang Wong was able to elude detection.
He had the esteem of the Supreme Potentate that he was entrusted with organizing "the most massive offensive in the history of mankind" to drive the Judah-ites and Jews from Jerusalem and Petra. Carpathia said to Director Akbar that the practically limitless monetary and military resources afforded to him for this endeavor would make every other historical military strategist hang his head in shame. In Glorious Appearing, even though he was entrusted to command the overwhelming forces to overrun Petra and Jerusalem, Suhail was shamefully dressed down for daring to mention the destruction of New Babylon in front of Carpathia in his underground bunker in Solomon's Stables. Carpathia told Chief Akbar that his services were no longer needed until further noticed and ordered him to return to his quarters with a half-dozen guards. While Commander Tenzin was beating Ipswich to death with a rattan rod for looking directly at Carpathia and did not addressing Carpathia with an extravagant title, such as "Potentate" or "Excellency", in his apology, Nicolae Carpathia ordered Tenzin pay Akbar a visit but only to beat him to the point of near death. Upon hearing Chaim Rosenzweig appear on a hijacked Global Community News Network broadcast, the capricious Carpathia changed his mind and order Tenzin to kill Akbar instead, while also directly ordering that an administrator at broadcast center be executed every minute until Chaim Rosenzweig is pushed off air.
Personality[]
Security Director Akbar was loyal to Nicolae Carpathia, always zealous to carry about his directives, even though these directives came in a pique or at a whim. In Desecration, he saw Carpathia personally murder high-ranking loyal personnel – such as Loren Hut and Walter Moon – for failing to fulfill Carpathia's orders, even though they acted competently and gave an earnest effort. For those murders, Akbar lent Carpathia his side arm when Carpathia vehemently requested it. (Carpathia used Moon's side arm to kill Loren Hut in the dramatic audio of Desecration.) He also approved of Carpathia's order for the execution of the Indian stewards on the pretext that they were leaking confidential information to a mole in the New Babylon palace, even though Akbar knew that the stewards passed the lie detector test and were innocent. On his own initiative, he also ordered the execution of two fighter pilots – Uri and Kerry – who failed to incinerate the Judah-ite stronghold of Petra due to divine protection of the inhabitants, even though the pilots hit their targets and the bombs detonated. Director Akbar ironically died under similar circumstances for a minor infraction just hours before the Glorious Appearing.
In Armageddon (adult series) and The Perils of Love (kids series), Director Akbar used the phrase "final solution to the Jewish problem" which was to be discussed in a conference with all the ten subpotentates in Baghdad. While this might be evocative of the Wannsee Conference, at this point, Nicolae Carpathia already established concentration camps for Jews worldwide where they were supposed to be spared the guillotine for refusing the mark of Carpathia, but they were to be kept alive in utter squalor with no amenities such as heating, cooling, and medicine, with only a provision of food enough to keep them alive for another day of suffering. The "final solution" here is a military one where the Global Community One World Unity Army would overrun the stronghold of Petra and storm Jerusalem.
Chief Akbar was willing to stand up for competent personnel under him. When Uri appeared to sound insubordinate while communicating to mission command at the Global Community palace after he had dropped his ordinance on Petra when he suggested to abort a subsequent missile launch towards because it seemed to be supererogatory, Akbar defended him of the insubordination when Carpathia was offended by Uri's tone and Leon Fortunato demanded for Uri to be reprimanded. In the Dramatic Audio, Akbar appreciated the role of pride in effective military personnel, saying that it is "the ample ego of the combat pilot that makes him so valuable". However, Akbar had no qualms in killing his pilots once Carpathia expressed his disappointment in their performance and when they pridefully refused to conform to party line of the Global Community that they missed their target due to pilot error because they insisted that execution of the attack was impeccable but the Judah-ites survived due to some kind of miracle.
Akbar is not only loyal to Carpathia, but actually regards him as a divine figure; his attitude is similar to a divine command theorist or a theological voluntarist who regards whatever God wills constitutes the basis for morality or truth. He may have complied with Carpathia's directives out of personal and professional expediency instead of sincere reverence because loyalty to Carpathia is what had advanced his career to the point where he became the Director of Security and Intelligence to the Global Community. When questioned by Carpathia about whether the execution of two innocent people bothered his conscience, Akbar said that Carpathia was the "father of truth", reiterating Carpathia's remarks after he finished the lie detector test, where Carpathia reported some obvious falsehoods that were assessed to be truthful replies. Akbar said that the executions did not bother him despite what he had witnessed since his conscience is at Carpathia's service. When one of Indian stewards referred to Leon Fortunato as "Mr. Fortunato", Suhail corrected him saying that it is "Reverend Fortunato", but said that he did not mind but he should not make that mistake in front of "His Excellency". When the steward replied, "or the Most High Reverend Father", Akbar chuckled. Suhail probably does not hold Fortunato or the role of Most High Reverend Father of Carpathianism in high esteem.
Appearances[]
Trivia[]
- In the dramatic audio presentation for the Left Behind: The Kids series, Akbar kills Terrel Blancka.
- In the dramatic audio presentations, he is played by Ryan Bolletino.
- A Professor from George Washington University, Melani McAlister, said in her chapter "Prophecy, Politics, and the Popular: The Left Behind Series and Christian Evangelicalism’s New World Order" that the Pakistani Suhail Akbar is a part of a "virtual Rainbow Coalition of evil," which includes the Romanian Antichrist, the Italian-American Leon Fortunato, U.S. Catholic bishop Peter Mathews, and the Chinese security expert Walter Moon. [1]
- In the dramatic audio for the kids series, during Carpathia's entrance in Jerusalem, Lionel Washington says that while has in the Morale Monitor program, they had a picture of Suhail Akbar staring up at you during every meal. However, Suhail Akbar was appointed to the Head of Security and Intelligence during the period of The Mark, but Lionel left the Morale Monitors before his appointment.