In a significant development, a 22-year-old Army soldier has entered a guilty plea for his attempt to aid ISIS in ambushing and killing U.S. soldiers in the Middle East. The announcement was made by the Justice Department on Friday. The soldier, known as Cole Bridges or Cole Gonzales, could face a maximum of 40 years in prison for his crimes. Bridges pleaded guilty in a New York federal court to charges of attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization and attempting to murder U.S. military service members.
According to federal prosecutors, Bridges joined the Army in September 2019 and was assigned as a cavalry scout in Georgia. In the same year, he began researching online propaganda that promoted jihadists and expressed his support for ISIS and jihad through online platforms. In October 2020, Bridges started communicating with an undercover FBI agent posing as an ISIS supporter in contact with ISIS fighters.
Unaware that he was interacting with law enforcement, Bridges provided training and guidance to supposed ISIS fighters who were planning attacks, including providing advice on potential targets in New York City. He even created diagrams of specific military maneuvers to assist ISIS in causing the most harm to U.S. troops. Bridges was arrested in January 2021.
“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,” stated U.S. Attorney Damian Williams of the Southern District of New York. “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.”
The case was a collaborative effort involving the FBI’s New York Joint Terrorism Task Force, U.S. Army Counterintelligence, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, Bridge’s division (the U.S. Army Third Infantry Division), and other law enforcement and military entities.
Kathryn Watson
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