2023-06-15 16:26:09
A US soldier pleaded guilty on Wednesday to trying to help the Islamic State (IS) organization attack the US military in the Middle East, authorities said.
The 22-year-old soldier actually passed information to undercover Federal Police (FBI) agents.
They posed as members of the jihadist group which controlled vast territories in Iraq and Syria for several years before being defeated by local forces supported by an international coalition led by the United States.
Cole Bridges, who joined the military in 2019, pleaded guilty Wednesday to “attempted material assistance to a foreign organization designated as a terrorist and attempted murder of U.S. service members,” a statement from federal prosecutors read. charge of the case.
According to the prosecution, the accused was first a reader of jihadist propaganda online.
In October 2020, he began to discuss with the one who was therefore an FBI agent and “provided him with training and advice” in particular to attack “potential targets in New York”.
He then gave advice on how to do maximum damage and casualties by attacking the US military in the Middle East.
The soldier also sent two videos of him, a first where he stands next to a jihadist flag, a second where the man resumes “a propaganda speech supporting an ambush” targeting the American military, notes the prosecution.
Since the territorial collapse of the self-proclaimed “caliphate” in 2019, jihadist cells have sporadically carried out attacks in the region, and are sometimes targeted by American strikes.
Cole Bridges will serve his sentence on November 2. He faces 20 years in prison for each of the two counts to which he pleaded guilty.
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