U.S. Soldier Who Sold Out His Own: Sentenced
Cole James Bridges, a U.S. Army cavalry scout, sent a video of himself to an undercover cop. In the video, he praises jihad and exhorts terrorists to attack fellow soldiers. Photo provided by the FBI.
Bridges pleaded guilty on June 14, 2023, after being caught red-handed, providing support and secret information to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) to help them attack and kill his fellow U.S. soldiers in the Middle East, as detailed in the June 2023 DOJ press release.
Bridges joined the U.S. Army in September 2019 and was a cavalry scout in the 3rd Infantry Division based in Fort Stewart, Georgia, according to the criminal complaint. On Dec. 25, 2019, three months after joining the Army, Bridges searched for keywords like “ak 47 downsight,” “U.S. soldier shooting” and “badass jihadi.”
Bridges was deployed to Germany from September 2020 to late November 2020, according to the criminal complaint. A month before his deployment, in August 2020, Bridges conducted various questionable online searches, including “Suicide in Islam” and “Green Beret Ambush.” Bridges also had a profile picture on his Facebook profile that indicated his support for ISIS.
Bridges also posted other ISIS-sympathetic posts and videos on his social media in August 2020, according to the complaint. Around the same time, Bridges used an encrypted messaging app to speak to other like-minded people. This is where Bridges became connected to an FBI online covert employee (OCE) he thought was a female ISIS supporter.
‘Ties to HAMAS and ISIS’
Bridges admitted to her in September 2020 that he had ties to HAMAS and ISIS before he was in the military and implied that he joined the army to prove he wasn’t a terrorist, but he hated wearing the U.S. flag on his shoulder, the indictment detailed. He told her that Homeland Security was suspicious of him, but the contacts were never confirmed.
Bridges and the OCE spoke multiple times on the messaging app, their conversations evolving into Bridges offering to give combat advice and tactics, according to the indictment. He sent clips of combat training videos explaining the tactics used by military personnel. On Nov. 12, 2020, in a group chat with another FBI agent posing as a France-based supporter, Bridges sent a U.S. Army field manual advising them to practice so they could build muscle memory through repetition.
Over the next few months, Bridges shared best practices about how to engage and retreat during battles, including how to create a “kill zone.” When Bridges returned to the U.S. from Germany, he sent them diagrams explaining how to create a “bottleneck” and where to strategically place their weapons in an ISIS compound, all in preparation for the ISIS supporters attacking and successfully defending against U.S. troops, according to the sentencing documents.
Bridges even created a video on or around Jan. 6, 2021, promoting an attack on U.S. soldiers, which he proudly shared with OCE on Jan. 12, 2021. He then offered to make a better one, according to the sentencing documents. Bridges was arrested on Jan. 19, 2021, and admitted to authorities that he helped to plan an ambush against American troops, which could have resulted in their deaths, including the death of his own father, who serves in the U.S. Army and was deploying within a month of Bridges’ arrest.
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