Army soldier pleads guilty to attempting to help ISIS murder US troops

An Army soldier pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support to ISIS to help kill other U.S. troops. 

Cole Bridges, a 22-year-old Ohio man, joined the Army in approximately September 2019 and was subsequently assigned as a cavalry scout based in Fort Stewart, Ga. That same year, according to prosecutors, he began consuming online propaganda “promoting jihadists and their violent ideology,” and posted his support for the Islamic State on social media platforms. 

In about October 2020, prosecutors said, Bridges began communicating with an undercover FBI agent online who was posing as an ISIS supporter with connections to fighters in the Middle East. Bridges supplied the undercover agent with guidance and training material about, for example, potential targets in New York, the Department of Justice alleges. 

Bridges continued to provide information and guidance through January 2021 to the undercover agent. In December 2020, he provided specific instructions for ISIS fighters to kill U.S. troops, prosecutors said. In one instance, Bridges also purportedly “diagrammed specific military maneuvers intended to help ISIS fighters maximize the lethality of attacks on U.S. troops.” 

Bridges faces a maximum of 40 years in prison and will be sentenced Nov. 2. 

“As he admitted in court today, Cole Bridges attempted to orchestrate a murderous ambush on his fellow soldiers in service of ISIS and its violent ideology.  Bridges’s traitorous conduct was a betrayal of his comrades and his country.  Thanks to the incredible work of the prosecutors of this Office and our partners at the FBI and the U.S. Army, Bridges’s malign intent was revealed, and he now awaits sentencing for his crimes,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams of the Southern District of New York said in a press release Wednesday.