US soldier sentenced to 14 years for aiding ISIS in attack on American troops
Shafaq News/ An American court sentenced soldier Cole Bridges to 14 years in prison after he admitted to assisting the terrorist organization ISIS in setting an ambush targeting American military personnel in a Middle Eastern country.
According to a statement from the US Department of Justice, “Cole Gonzales, 24, of Stow, Ohio, was sentenced to 168 months in prison followed by 10 years of supervised release for attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization and attempting to murder US military service members, based on his efforts to assist the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) to attack and kill US soldiers in the Middle East.”
In his ruling, Judge Lewis Liman stated that 14 years in prison “would be sufficient,” noting that Bridges had requested a 40-year sentence for himself. However, he was not in direct communication with the terrorists but rather with an undercover FBI agent posing as an ISIS supporter.
The statement indicated that Bridges provided “the OCE with instructions for the purported ISIS fighters on how to attack US forces in the Middle East. Among other things, Bridges diagrammed specific military maneuvers intended to help ISIS fighters maximize the lethality of future attacks on US troops. Bridges also provided advice about the best way to fortify an ISIS encampment to ambush US Special Forces, including by wiring certain buildings with explosives to kill the US troops.”
Bridges pleaded guilty to the terrorism charges against him on June 14, 2023, and he joined the US Army in September 2019. At one point, he expressed frustration with his service in the military.
In October 2020, nearly a year after joining the Army, Bridges began communicating online with an FBI “covert employee” who was pretending to be an ISIS supporter in contact with ISIS fighters in the Middle East.
The American soldier also provided the employee with parts of a US Army training manual and guidance on military combat tactics, understanding that the materials would be used by ISIS to plan a future attack.
