Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 20, 1991                   TAG: 9102200129
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: IN SAUDI ARABIA                                LENGTH: Short

RAIDERS CAPTURE IRAQI FLAG

Every night American soldiers and armor cross the border into Iraq and Kuwait, probing for weaknesses in the Iraqi line of defense. Gunfire is common.

During a raid early Monday, soldiers of the Army's 24th Infantry Division crossed the border and captured what is believed to be a first-of-its-kind prize in the war, an Iraqi flag.

The flag was taken from an unoccupied guard post about 2,000 yards north of the Saudi border. The post had been hit by American artillery rounds the day before, causing one wall to cave in.

Capt. Todd Sherrill, 29, of Maiden, N.C., led the mission and told an American pool reporter that the post was covered with pictures of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq.

Propaganda slogans were painted in Arabic on the walls. In one corner of the guard post, he said, the Army scouts found an instruction sheet for a German-made gas mask.

"Walking through there was what it must have been like walking through Stalingrad in World War II, with all the broken glass and rubble," he said. - The New York Times