Pompeo: Afghans should step up to fight Taliban

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday the Afghan people should take up arms to prevent the Taliban from gaining full control of the country.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Pompeo said that as U.S. forces withdraw from Afghanistan, he believes Afghan forces can secure the country, but it will depend on whether they have the will to fight. Thousands of Afghanis have fled the country in recent days as Taliban forces have surged through northern Afghanistan.

"I saw some 22, 23-year-old Afghan male saying 'It's really dangerous here. I want to get out,'" Pompeo said. "What those Afghans should've been saying 'It's really dangerous here. Give me an M-16.' They need to fight for their own country. We don't need to send Americans to fight if the Afghan people aren't willing to fight for their freedom."

During Trump's tenure, Pompeo headed up negotiations with the Taliban. He applauded President Joe Biden's move to withdraw from Afghanistan but said he was worried that U.S. counterterrorism operations could be hurt in the process.

Pompeo also pushed Biden to increase pressure on the Cuban government as antigovernment protests erupted on the island Sunday amid a resurgence of coronavirus cases and the country's worst economic crisis in decades.

Under the former U.S. administration of President Donald Trump imposed more than 200 sanctions against the island in four years. Pompeo worries that any humanitairan goods that are delivered to Cuba from the U.S. will end up being sold on the 'black market' and end up in the pocket of the island country's president, Miguel Diaz-Canal.

"This is a corrupt leadership. You have to make sure that if you provide this assistance, it actually gets to the people that you're trying to assist, and it is the regime that is preventing that from happening," Pompeo said. "The Cuban people know that. They're waving the American flag. They want freedom for themselves. They don't want the leaders they have."

Biden said on the campaign trail that he would largely reverse Trump's Cuba policy and return to Obama-era policies. But Biden has largely kept Trump's policies in the place in the early going.