Army soldier sentenced to 14 years for ISIS plot to ambush troops

Former Army soldier Cole Bridges was sentenced Friday to 14 years in prison for his attempt to help ISIS ambush and kill American troops in the Middle East. The sentencing comes more than a year after Bridges pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support to ISIS.

Bridges, who also went by the name “Cole Gonzales,” was sentenced on October 11 in New York. After his prison sentence is over, he will also serve 10 years of supervised release. At the time of his arrest, Bridges was a private first class and cavalry scout assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division out of Fort Stewart, Georgia.

“Cole Bridges used his training in the United States Army to pursue a heinous goal: the brutal murder of his fellow service members in a carefully planned ambush,” said Damian Williams, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. York, in a statement. “Bridges sought to attack the very soldiers he was supposed to protect and, making this abhorrent behavior even more disturbing, he was eager to help people he believed were members of a deadly foreign terrorist organization to plan this attack. This is treason of the worst order.”

Bridges, 24, joined the U.S. Army in September 2019. According to the Justice Department, his support for the extremist group began earlier that year before he joined the military. Prosecutors say he was already watching pro-ISIS media and expressing his support for the terror group before signing up.

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According to the initial indictment against him, Bridges came onto the FBI’s radar in the fall of 2020, ahead of a three-month deployment to Germany. He began searching online for various violent terms, including “Green Beret ambush,” and made several social media posts expressing support for jihadist ideology.

Bridges began communicating online with someone he thought was an ISIS contact, but it was an FBI agent posing as one. The soldier expressed his support for ISIS and tried to offer the group ways he could help. In his communications with undercover agents, he advised them on ways to prepare for attacks by U.S. forces. That included advising on possible targets for terror attacks in New York City and sharing portions of U.S. military training manuals with the undercover agent. He later began sharing ways the group’s members in the Middle East could prepare for future battles with U.S. forces hunting them. His advice ranged from repelling attacks via helicopter to suggestions to set up a building like ‘Alamo’ for a ‘last stand’.

Bridges was arrested in January 2021 after sharing a video of himself expressing support for ISIS in military gear. He pleaded guilty in June 2023 to attempting to provide material support to terrorist organizations and attempting to assassinate U.S. military members.

According to the Associated Press, Bridges even requested a harsher sentence. He asked in court on Friday for the maximum possible sentence of forty years, something the prosecutor also insisted on. The judge denied the request, saying, among other things, that Bridges did not actually communicate with ISIS members.

Bridges is the latest person to be convicted of plotting terrorist attacks against fellow troops. Last year, an army soldier was sentenced to 45 years in prison for planning an insider attack in the service of a neo-Nazi terror group.

“We are grateful for the support of the Department of Justice and the FBI in helping to bring this case to a successful conclusion,” said Brig. Gen. Rhett R. Cox, the head of the Army Counterintelligence Command, said in a statement. “We will continue to work together to ensure the safety and security of our military and our nation. We remind all members of the military team to be vigilant and report insider threats to the appropriate authorities.”

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