Former U.S. Soldier Is Sentenced to 14 Years for Planning to Help ISIS

Pvt. Cole Bridges pleaded guilty in 2023 to charges of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and attempting to murder U.S. military service members.

According to the U.S. Justice Department, a former soldier in the U.S. Army was given a sentence of 14 years in prison on Friday for pleading guilty to attempting to provide ISIS with information to help plan an ambush that he believed would kill U.S. soldiers in the Middle East.

Pvt. The soldier Additionally, Cole Bridges, a 24-year-old from Stow, Ohio, spoke with an undercover FBI agent who he believed to be a supporter of the Islamic State about potential locations for terrorist attacks in New York City.

The Justice Department claims that Private Bridges had already been persuaded by radical ideologies prior to enlisting in the military in 2019 and joining an infantry division in Fort Stewart, Ga.

Cole Bridges used his training from the U.S. Army to pursue a terrifying objective: the brutal murder of his fellow service members in a carefully planned ambush,” stated U.S. Attorney Damian Williams in a statement.

Starting in somewhere around 2019, Confidential Extensions started exploring jihadist misleading publicity and posted his help for ISIS via online entertainment. He started a correspondence with a F.B.I. agent who was posing as an ISIS supporter and in contact with the group in the Middle East about a year after joining the Army.

Private Bridges was described as "a supporter of ISIS and its mission to establish a global caliphate" in a criminal complaint filed in the Southern District of New York, which outlined the soldier's ardent intention to assist the Islamic State.

The complaint detailed his internet searches for terms like "Green Beret ambush" and "U.S. soldier shooting."

Around October 2020, the informant and Private Bridges began communicating through an encrypted messaging application. According to court records, Private Bridges gave advice on combat tactics and portions of training manuals for the U.S. Army in the hope that the information would be used in future attacks against U.S. soldiers.

Confidential Extensions additionally gave counsel on the most proficient method to strengthen ISIS places to stay to snare U.S. troops, including by wiring explosives to kill warriors as they entered specific structures.

According to court filings, Private Bridges gave the informant a video of himself standing in front of a flag that was known to be used by ISIS fighters to show his support for the group. He sent another video about a week later in which he talked about his support for what he thought was a planned ambush of American soldiers.

Federal prosecutors stated that assistance in domestic plots was also sought.

The source sent Private Scaffolds pictures of government structures in and around New York City, with a message that addressed whether an assault on vigorously protected structures would be conceivable.

"Pick your objectives astutely," Confidential Extensions composed. Later, he and the informant talked about a possible attack on the Lower Manhattan 9/11 Memorial & Museum.

Confidential Scaffolds was captured in January 2021. In June 2023, he entered a guilty plea to the charges of attempting to murder members of the United States military and attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. The maximum punishment for each of those charges was 20 years in prison. The private's attorney was not immediately accessible.

Private Bridges was given a 10-year supervised release order in addition to his prison term.

Mr. Williams stated in his statement, "Bridges sought to attack the very soldiers he was entrusted to protect and was eager to help people he believed to be members of a deadly foreign terrorist organization plan this attack, making this abhorrent conduct even more troubling." This is the worst kind of betrayal.