A US soldier was sentenced Friday to 14 years in prison for attempting to help the Islamic State murder troops.
The sentencing of Cole Bridges, 24, came after his 14 June 2023 guilty plea to terrorism charges.
Bridges joined the army some five years ago, and was assigned as a cavalry scout in the third infantry division based in Fort Stewart, Georgia. Before Bridges became a soldier, however, he started researching and consuming pro-terrorist propaganda – and voiced his support for IS and jihad on social media, Manhattan federal prosecutors said.
Around October 2020, Bridges started communicating online with someone whom he believed was an IS supporter. This person was actually an FBI undercover employee, authorities said.
Bridges told the covert operative that he was frustrated with the US armed forces and wanted to help IS. He then gave “training and guidance to purported Isis fighters who were planning attacks, including advice about potential targets in New York City”, according to a press release on his sentencing.
Bridges also gave parts of a US army training manual, as well as information on combat techniques, to the undercover employee. He did so “with the understanding that the materials would be used by Isis in future attack planning”.
In December 2020, Bridges started giving the covert operative instructions so that the purported IS militants would know how target US forces in the Middle East. Bridges also shared guidance on the best way to protect an IS stronghold in a bid to attack US special forces, prosecutors said.
This advice included how to wire some buildings with explosives, to kill troops. Early the next year, Bridges gave the undercover employee a video of himself wearing his military body armor “standing in front of a flag often used by Isis fighters and making a gesture symbolic of support for Isis,” prosecutors said.
About one week later, Bridges sent yet another video in which he, “using a voice manipulator”, voiced a propaganda speech to support an expected IS attack against US servicemen, officials said.
Bridges’ time in federal prison will be followed by 10 years of supervised release.
“Cole Bridges used his US army training to pursue a horrifying goal: the brutal murder of his fellow service members in a carefully plotted ambush,” the Manhattan US attorney Damian Williams said in a press release. “Bridges sought to attack the very soldiers he was entrusted to protect and, making this abhorrent conduct even more troubling, was eager to help people he believed were members of a deadly foreign terrorist organization plan this attack.
“This is a betrayal of the worst order.”
