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Pineville business raising money for anti-ISIS effort

BECKLEY, W.Va. — A Wyoming County business owner is hosting a fundraiser Saturday to help two local men fight ISIS in the Middle East.

One of the fighters, 35-year-old Charlie Keaton of Pineville, is asking area residents to attend the event at Ole Jose in Pineville, which will feature live music by the classic rock band, Bulletproof.

Keaton is part of the “offensive” arm of Veterans Against ISIS (VAI), a group of about 20 United States veterans, including Keaton and Justin Pritchard, also of Wyoming County, who are voluntarily returning to the Middle East to fight ISIS.

The VAI fighters changed their deployment date from an earlier time in order to find a suitable Middle Eastern fighting group to join.

“We had an advance team that went over, and they realized our original plan wasn’t the best way to go,” said Keaton, whose mission has been reported by media groups around the country. “The group we’d originally planned to go with wanted to split our team up.

“All of us Americans have somewhat the same training, and we’ll be more effective together,” he said. “We’re looking for groups that we can fight together and be more of a cohesive unit.

“We’re also trying to get big dollar donors to make this easier.”

The mission isn’t backed by the United States government…

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