Officials in Kabul have said that several Daesh fighters have come over to the government’s side, predicting a trend of defections from extremist groups in Afghanistan. Stars and Stripes reports: “Ten Daesh fighters have joined the reconciliation process today and put down their guns,” said Attaullah Khogyani, spokesman for the governor of Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province, where the Islamic State group affiliate in Afghanistan is primarily based. Daesh is a commonly used Arabic acronym for the extremist movement. “This is the first time on the national level that Daesh fighters have given up fighting and joined the peace process,” Khogyani said in a telephone interview from the provincial capital of Jalalabad, 100 miles east of Kabul. The Islamic State, which has overrun large parts of Syria, Iraq and Libya, has been struggling to set up a presence in Afghanistan for more than a year. Their fighters were quickly chased out of southern Helmand and Kandahar provinces by government forces. Since then they have tried to regroup in the remote, mountainous regions of Nangarhar province along Afghanistan’s eastern border with Pakistan. The guerrillas, who have had a hard time attracting popular support in a country that resists any foreign influence, have [...]