Former Army soldier Cole Bridges was sentenced to 14 years in prison on Friday 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 for ISIS.
Bridges, who also went by the name “Cole Gonzales,” was sentenced on Oct. 11 in New York. After his prison time is over, he will also serve 10 years of supervised release. At the time of his arrest, Bridges was a private first class and a cavalry scout assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division out of Fort Stewart in Georgia.
“Cole Bridges used his U.S. Army training to pursue a horrifying goal: the brutal murder of his fellow service members in a carefully plotted ambush,” Damian Williams, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement. “Bridges sought to attack the very soldiers he was entrusted to protect and, making this abhorrent conduct even more troubling, was eager to help people he believed were members of a deadly foreign terrorist organization plan this attack. This is a betrayal of the worst order.”
Bridges, 24, joined the U.S. Army in September 2019. His support for the extremist group started earlier that year before he joined the military, according to the Department of Justice. According to prosecutors he was already watching pro-ISIS media and expressing support for the terror group prior to enlisting.
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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 several violent terms online, including “Green Beret ambush” and made several posts on social media expressing support for jihadist ideology.
Bridges began communicating online with who he thought was an ISIS contact, but was an FBI agent posing as one. The soldier expressed support for ISIS and tried to offer the group ways that he could help. In his communications with undercovers, 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 parts of U.S. Army training manuals to the undercover agent. He later began sharing ways that members of the group in the Middle East could prepare for future fights with American forces that were hunting them down. His advice ranged from how to repel attacks via helicopter to suggestions to set up a building as an “Alamo” for a “last stand.”
Bridges was arrested in January 2021, after sharing a video of himself in Army gear expressing support for ISIS. He pleaded guilty in June 2023 to charges of attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organizations and to attempting to murder American military members.
According to the Associated Press, Bridges actually requested a harsher sentence. In the courtroom on Friday, he asked for the maximum possible sentence of 40 years, something the prosecutor also pushed for. The judge denied the request, saying that Bridges, among other reasons, did not actually communicate with ISIS members.
Bridges is the latest individual 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 FBI in helping to bring this case to a successful conclusion,” Brig. Gen. Rhett R. Cox, the head of Army Counterintelligence Command, said in a statement. “We will continue to work together to ensure the safety and security of our Army and our nation. We remind all members of the Army team to be vigilant and report insider threats to the appropriate authorities.”
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