A US soldier pleaded guilty Wednesday to aiding the “jihadist” organization Islamic State (IS) in attacking US forces in the Middle East.
This 22-year-old soldier eventually passed on information to US Federal Police (FBI) agents who were undercover, US authorities said.
The FBI agents posed as members of the “jihadist” group that controlled vast areas of Iraq and Syria for years before being defeated by local forces backed by an international coalition led by the United States.
Cole Bridges, who joined the military in 2019, pleaded guilty Wednesday to “attempting to provide material assistance to a designated foreign terrorist organization and attempted murder of U.S. military personnel,” federal prosecutors said in a statement.
According to the American justice system, the suspect was initially a reader of ‘jihadist’ propaganda on the internet.
In October 2020, he began feuding with what turned out to be an FBI agent, to whom he passed on “training and advice” to attack “potential targets in New York”.
After that, the military gave advice on how to cause maximum damage and casualties in an attack on the US military in the Middle East.
The soldier also uploaded two videos of himself, a first in which he stands next to a “jihadist” flag and a second in which the man “makes a propaganda speech in support of an ambush” against the US military, prosecutors said.
Since the territorial collapse of the self-proclaimed “caliphate” in 2019, “jihadist” cells have sporadic attacks in the region and are sometimes targets of US attacks.
Cole Bridges is sentenced on November 2 to 20 years in prison on each of the two charges to which he pleaded guilty.
Source: DN
