A U.S. soldier was sentenced Friday to 14 years in prison for trying to help the Islamic State kill troops.
The sentencing of Cole Bridges, 24, came after he pleaded guilty on June 14, 2023, to terrorism charges.
Bridges joined the Army about five years ago and was assigned as a cavalry scout in the 3rd Infantry Division based at Fort Stewart, Georgia. However, before becoming a soldier, Bridges began researching and consuming pro-terrorism propaganda and expressed support for ISIS and jihad on social media, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said.
Around October 2020, Bridges began communicating online with someone he believed to be an ISIS supporter. This person was actually an undercover FBI employee, authorities said.
Bridges told the undercover agent that he was frustrated with the U.S. military and wanted to help ISIS. He then provided “training and guidance to suspected ISIS fighters who were planning attacks, including advice on potential targets in New York City,” according to a report. Press release on your sentence.
Bridges also gave the undercover employee parts of a US Army training guide, as well as information on combat techniques. He did so “with the understanding that Isis would use the materials in planning future attacks.”
In December 2020, Bridges began giving covert operational instructions so suspected IS militants would know how to target US forces in the Middle East. Bridges also shared guidance on how best to protect an IS stronghold in an attempt to attack US special forces, prosecutors said.
This tip included how to wire some buildings with explosives to kill troops. Early the following year, Bridges gave the undercover employee a video of himself wearing his military bulletproof vest “standing in front of a flag often used by Isis fighters and making a symbolic gesture of support for Isis,” the reports said. prosecutors.
About a week later, Bridges sent another video in which he, “using a voice manipulator,” gave a propaganda speech in support of an expected IS attack on the U.S. military, officials said.
Bridges' time in federal prison will be followed by 10 years of supervised release.
“Cole Bridges used his training in the U.S. military to pursue a horrific objective: the brutal murder of his fellow service members in a carefully planned ambush,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a news release. “Bridges attempted to attack the very soldiers he had been entrusted to protect and, making this abhorrent conduct even more worrying, he was eager to help people he believed to be members of a deadly foreign terrorist organization plan this attack.
“This is betrayal of the worst order.”
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