U.S. Army Soldier Pleads Guilty to Trying to Aid ISIS in Murdering American Troops

Cole Bridges was arrested in 2021 after communicating online with an FBI agent posing as an ISIS supporter in 2020

A 22-year-old Ohio man pleaded guilty this week to terrorism charges after federal investigators say he tried to help ISIS terrorists kill U.S. troops overseas.

Cole Bridges (who also goes by Cole Gonzales) was arrested in 2021 after communicating online with an FBI agent posing as an ISIS supporter in 2020, prosecutors allege.

According to the Department of Justice, Bridges eventually gave the agent instructions for ways that ISIS fighters could attack U.S. forces in the Middle East.

"Among other things, Bridges diagrammed specific military maneuvers intended to help ISIS fighters maximize the lethality of attacks on U.S. troops," the department says in a release. "Bridges further provided advice about the best way to fortify an ISIS encampment to repel an attack by U.S. Special Forces, including by wiring certain buildings with explosives to kill the U.S. troops."

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Later, in 2021, Bridges allegedly provided the agent with a video of himself wearing his U.S. Army body armor and standing in front of a flag often used by ISIS fighters while making a gesture symbolic of support for ISIS. One week later, Bridges sent a second video, this one in which he narrates a "propaganda speech in support of the anticipated ambush by ISIS on U.S. troops" while using a voice manipulator.

“As he admitted in court [Wednesday], Cole Bridges attempted to orchestrate a murderous ambush on his fellow soldiers in service of ISIS and its violent ideology," Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in the release. "Bridges’s traitorous conduct was a betrayal of his comrades and his country."

Williams continued: "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.”

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Bridges pled guilty to attempting to provide material support to ISIS and attempting to murder U.S. military service members, and faces up to 20 years in prison for each charge. His sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 2.

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