US soldier accused of helping ISIS jailed

Cole Bridges, also known as Cole Gonzales, a 24-year-old from Stow, Ohio, was sentenced to 168 months in prison followed by 10 years of supervised release for attempting to provide material support to ISIS, a designated foreign terrorist organization.

Bridges was also convicted for attempting to murder U.S. military service members by assisting ISIS in planning attacks against American soldiers in the Middle East.

Bridges, who pleaded guilty to terrorism charges in June 2023, joined the U.S. Army in September 2019 and served as a cavalry scout in the Third Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Georgia. However, before his enlistment, he had already begun researching jihadist propaganda and supporting ISIS on social media.

In October 2020, about a year after joining the Army, Bridges began communicating with an undercover FBI employee posing as an ISIS supporter. During these communications, Bridges expressed his disillusionment with the U.S. military and his intent to help ISIS. He provided advice to supposed ISIS fighters on training and targets, including potential attacks in New York City.

Bridges’ actions underscore the dangers of radicalization and the threat posed by individuals seeking to assist terrorist organizations from within.

READ ALSO:

• Man killed while trying to separate fight in Adamawa
• Shocking! Student writes love letter to new school teacher (Video)
• Customs seize 4 containers of N1.2bn hard drugs in Lagos

Mr Bridges also provided the OCE with portions of a U.S. Army training manual and guidance about military combat tactics, with the understanding that the materials would be used by ISIS in future attack planning.

In or about December 2020, Mr Bridges began to supply the OCE with instructions for the purported ISIS fighters on how to attack U.S. forces in the Middle East.

Among other things, Mr Bridges diagrammed specific military maneuvers intended to help ISIS fighters maximize the lethality of future attacks on U.S. troops.

Mr Bridges also provided advice about 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.

Then, in January 2021, Mr Bridges provided the OCE with a video of himself in his U.S. Army body armor standing in front of a flag often used by ISIS fighters and making a gesture symbolic of support for ISIS.

Approximately one week later, Mr Bridges sent a second video in which Mr Bridges, using a voice manipulator, narrated a propaganda speech in support of the anticipated ambush by ISIS on U.S. troops.

The FBI’s New York Joint Terrorism Task Force investigated the case, with valuable assistance provided by the FBI field offices in Washington, Atlanta, and Cleveland; U.S. Army Counterintelligence, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia, Air Force Office of Special Investigations, U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command, and U.S. Army Third Infantry Division.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sam Adelsberg and Matthew Hellman for the Southern District of New York prosecuted the case, with assistance from Trial Attorney Michael Dittoe of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section.

US soldier accused of helping ISIS jailed

(US Department of Justice)

Woman who slept with 122 students in 3 weeks replies parents, critics

An adult content creator believes the parents of the men she’s slept with should be ‘thanking’ her after she invited them to ‘marathon’ sex sessions at various UK universities.

Late last month, Bonnie Blue, a 25-year-old who resides in Australia, returned to England to embark on a month-long erotic odyssey.

It’s understood she planned to sleep with as many freshman students as possible in the hopes of ‘helping’ young men gain confidence when it came to doing the deed.

The OnlyFans star, who originally hails from Nottingham, began her ‘educational’ sex tour in her home town before traveling over to institutions in Cambridge and Derby.

She reportedly encouraged ‘virgins’ and ‘fresh 18-year-olds’ to contact her so they could embark on an hour-long sexual encounter.

“I gave everyone a time slot. It’s like you’re going for your hair,” she told the Daily Mail. “I said you can do whatever you want to me in this slot and then someone else is coming in.”

Initially, slots with Bonnie were capped at 60 minutes each. However, presumably due to her popularity, she later reduced time to just 20 minutes per man.

Bonnie reportedly filmed each of her sessions – ensuring each of the men had valid IDs and signed a consent form beforehand – and plans to post each video on her OnlyFans account.

READ ALSO:

• How Libya held Eagles hostage in abandoned airport for 15 hours – Report
• Naira exchanges at N1,680/$ in parallel market
• Nigeria to introduce e-gate technology for border control

The social media star has taken on critics and parents who have taken issue with her event.

Bonnie claims the mums, dads and legal guardians of the men she slept with should be ‘thanking’ her for ‘educating’ their sons.

“I’m helping their children out,” she told the publication. “When I’m sleeping with them it’s educational and they walk away with such confidence.”

Bonnie also claimed that she found men in the UK to be ‘stiff’ in the bedroom compared to their Gold Coast counterparts. She’s also been forced to defend her decision to target freshmen for her sexperiment.

“If people want to think that an 18-year-old doesn’t want to sleep with a porn star then they really have to get out from under their rock,” she claimed.

“When 18-year-olds are having sex it’s usually unprotected and it’s never that good of an experience because the girls are inexperienced too. I have a video of them and they clearly are enjoying it.”

However, students were not the only people Bonnie slept with during her marathon.

“It was mostly students but there was also a group of grandads,” she admitted. “The oldest was 71. One was retired. He heard about me from his grandson.

“The people who turn up might look weird or be weird to someone else but I’m happy to pleasure anyone.”

Earlier this year, Bonnie admitted to sleeping with ‘122 students’ during a three week period.

The adult star headed to Cancun for Spring Break and allegedly made $250,000 from her Mexican trip with friend Leilani May.

“The college boys enjoyed Spring Break, but I gave them one to remember,” she told the Daily Star.

“Many Spring Breakers actually called it a bonding experience. They enjoyed every second of it, as did I!”

Bonnie said she’s considering going back for round two in Cancun next year and that she also hopes to tick off Freshers Week in Manchester and London, too.

Woman who slept with 122 students in 3 weeks replies parents, critics

unilad

Hezbollah drone strike kills four, wounds dozens at Israeli base

Beirut: Israel’s military said a Hezbollah drone killed four soldiers at one of its northern bases Sunday, as it expanded its bombardments of Lebanon and troops battled militants across the border.

The attack on a military training camp in Binyamina, near Haifa, was the deadliest such assault on an Israeli base since September 23, when Israel increased its attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon. Emergency services reported more than 60 wounded.

Authorities in Gaza, meanwhile, said the death toll from an Israeli strike Sunday on a school being used as a shelter for displaced people had risen to 15, including whole families, while a separate overnight strike on a hospital killed four.

And as fighting raged between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon’s south, United Nations peacekeepers said they had again been in the firing line.

They said Israeli troops “forcibly” entered a UN position with two tanks, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the force to withdraw from the area.

Israel’s military said a tank had backed into the UN post while under fire.

Iran-backed Hezbollah said late Sunday that it launched “a squadron of attack drones” at the Binyamina camp, around 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of the major city of Haifa.

The strike was in response to Israeli attacks, including air strikes on Thursday that Lebanon’s health ministry said killed at least 22 people in central Beirut.

In a later statement, Hezbollah warned Israel that “what it witnessed today in southern Haifa is nothing compared to what awaits it if it decides to continue its aggression against our noble and dear people.”

An Israeli volunteer rescue service, United Hatzalah, said its teams in Binyamina assisted “over 60 wounded people” with injuries ranging from mild to critical.

Hezbollah has been firing rockets and drones into Israel for more than a year in support of Hamas militants in Gaza.

Since late September, however, its strikes have reached further into the country.

READ ALSO:

• Trump urges using military against ‘enemy from within’ on Election Day
• Man with two guns, fake passports arrested near Trump rally
• Teenage tricycle rider murdered in Delta, mob sets killer ablaze

Israel’s sophisticated air defenses have intercepted most of the projectiles, with few casualties caused by strikes or falling debris.

Israel’s recent strikes have increasingly focused on areas beyond Hezbollah’s traditional strongholds in southern Beirut, and Lebanon’s south and east.

Israel said its air force hit “Hezbollah launchers, anti-tank missile posts, weapons storage facilities” and other targets, while on the ground its soldiers “eliminated dozens” of fighters.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency said Israeli forces had “escalated their attacks” on southern Lebanon with “successive air strikes” pounding several border villages.

It later reported that an Israeli strike on Mayfadoun, near Nabatiyeh, in southern Lebanon, had killed five people and wounded one other.

Hezbollah said its forces clashed several times with Israeli troops who tried to “infiltrate” villages along the border.

Before the drone strike it had said it launched a salvo of rockets at a “base in southern Haifa.”

The group later aired an audio recording of its slain leader Hassan Nasrallah calling on fighters to “defend this holy and blessed land and this honorable people.”

Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli air strike in south Beirut on September 27, and several other senior commanders of the movement have also been killed.

Israel’s military said about 115 projectiles fired by Hezbollah had crossed into Israeli territory by Sunday afternoon.

A Hezbollah fighter was captured emerging from a tunnel in south Lebanon on Sunday, Israel’s military said, the first such announcement since the start of the ground offensive.

UN peacekeepers accused Israeli troops of breaking through a gate and entering one of their positions before dawn Sunday in south Lebanon, the latest of several incidents the UNIFIL mission has reported since Thursday.

Five Blue Helmets have so far been injured, provoking international condemnation.

“Two IDF (Israeli military) Merkava tanks destroyed the position’s main gate and forcibly entered the position” in the Ramia area, before leaving 45 minutes later, UNIFIL said.

The Israeli military later said a tank “backed several meters into a UNIFIL post” while “under fire” and attempting to evacuate injured soldiers.

READ ALSO:

• We’ve agreed to boycott Libya match over poor treatment – S’Eagles captain Troost-Ekong
• Protesters kill many burn houses, police station in Edo over kidnap
• Police smash organ harvesting syndicate in Imo

Earlier Sunday, Netanyahu had called on the UN to move peacekeepers in southern Lebanon out of harm’s way, after the mission rejected requests to abandon its positions.

The peacekeepers’ presence had “the effect of providing Hezbollah terrorists with human shields,” said Netanyahu.

UN chief Antonio Guterres on Sunday said “attacks” against peacekeepers “may constitute a war crime.”

UNIFIL, with about 9,500 troops, is in southern Lebanon under the longstanding UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which stipulated that only the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers should be deployed in south Lebanon.

Three Lebanese soldiers were wounded on Sunday, the country’s army said, when Israeli forces fired on military vehicles in the Marjayoun area.

French President Emmanuel Macron, in a phone call with Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, appealed to Tehran to support “a general de-escalation” in Lebanon and Gaza, his office said.Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli shelling had killed at least 15 people and wounded dozens more Sunday at a school turned shelter for displaced Palestinians in central Gaza’s Nuseirat camp.

“The school was bombarded with a large volley of Israeli artillery, resulting in an initial death toll of 15 martyrs, including children, women and entire families, and 50 wounded,” said Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the agency.

Israel’s military said it was “looking into the reports.”

Separately, the military said early Monday that it had carried out a strike targeting a “command and control center, which was embedded inside a compound that previously served as the ‘Shuhadah Al-Aqsa’ hospital.”

Civil defense spokesman Bassal said the strike had killed four people and wounded many more, noting it was the seventh time an attack had hit the “tents for displaced people inside the walls of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.”

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said late Sunday that a WHO-Palestine Red Crescent operation had managed to resupply two hospitals in northern Gaza.

“WHO and partners finally managed to reach Kamal Adwan and Al-Sahaba hospitals yesterday after 9 attempts this past week,” he posted on X.

Hamas sparked the war in Gaza with the deadliest-ever attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

The number includes hostages killed in captivity.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says more than 42,000 people, the majority civilians, have been killed since Israel’s military campaign began there. The UN considers these figures to be reliable.

Israeli strikes in Lebanon have killed more than 1,300 people since September 23, according to an AFP tally of official figures, including for Saturday.

That toll exceeds the entire Lebanese toll of 1,200 — mostly civilians — in the last Hezbollah-Israel war in 2006, when 160 people, mostly soldiers, died in Israel.

The Pentagon said it would deploy a high-altitude anti-missile system and its US military crew to Israel to help the ally protect itself from potential Iranian attack.

Hezbollah drone strike kills four, wounds dozens at Israeli base