US soldier given 14-year sentence for plotting to help ISIS

( NewsNation ) — A U.S. army soldier was sentenced to only 14 years in prison for trying to aid what he thought was an attempted Islamic State group (ISIS) attack on his fellow service members despite the fact that he asked for the maximum 40-year sentence.

Cole Bridges, 24, of Stow, Ohio, pleaded guilty to terrorism charges last July. According to the Department of Justice, Bridges began researching online and expressing his support for ISIS on social media beginning in at least 2019 prior to his joining the army. After he joined in or around October 2020, Bridges started talking to a covert FBI employee posing as an ISIS supporter in contact with the organization’s fighters in the Middle East.

As he spoke to this covert agent, Bridges expressed frustration with the U.S. military and talked about his desire to aid ISIS, the DOJ said. Bridges gave guidance to what he thought were ISIS fighters planning attacks, providing the undercover agent with portions of an Army training manual.

In December 2020, Bridges started supplying the agent with instructions on how to attack U.S. forces in the Middle East, such as specific military maneuvers intended to help ISIS fighters “maximize the lethality of future attacks on U.S. troops.” Also provided by Bridges was information on the best way to “fortify an ISIS encampment to ambush U.S. Special Forces, including by wiring certain buildings with explosives to kill the U.S. troops,” the DOJ wrote.

In January 2021, Bridges gave the undercover agent a video of himself in Army body armor, standing in front of a flag often used by ISIS fighters and making a gesture symbolic of ISIS. A week later, Bridges sent a second video where he narrated a propaganda speech supporting the anticipated ISIS ambush on U.S. troops.

“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,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams 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.”

During court Friday, Bridges told Judge Lewis J. Liman he should get the longest possible prison stint, and he would carry “regret for as long as I live.”

“Honestly, I do believe that I deserve the maximum sentence,” Bridges said, according to The Associated Press. “I know what I did was wrong.”

Liman, however, explained the 14-year sentence by saying Bridges was “not a hardened criminal” and that he had no actual communications with the Islamic State organization.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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