Marines discover 'cache of suicide vests' in Baghdad school

US Marines say they have discovered a cache of 50 suicide bomb vests hidden in a school in a residential neighborhood of central Baghdad.

The black leather vests with wires running along them weighed about 20 pounds and were filled with long rectangular blocks of C4 plastic explosive and hundreds of ball bearings.

The cache was discovered on Thursday and reporters were shown the site today.

The Marines found the vests - on hangers and sealed in plastic - arranged in two rows on the floor of a classroom in which the desks and chairs were stacked in the back. A green chalkboard in front had a picture of Saddam Hussein on it.

The room in the school appeared to be a science classroom. Beakers filled cabinets on the walls, where there were posters of organism cells.

Cardboard boxes filled with detonator boxes with two red switches on one side and Velcro on the other were found outside the classroom. Stacks of plastic bags filled with blocks of reddish brown putty, that Marines suspect were also explosives, stood outside.

In the courtyard, Marines found a roll of red detonation chord, three boxes of dynamite, a crate of electrical cable in a box marked explosives and stacks of empty hangers.

American troops in Iraq are in a state of high alert for ambushes and suicide attacks by fighters loyal to Saddam. Before Baghdad fell, Saddam's officials had promised waves and waves of suicide attacks against the invading US troops.

On Thursday, four Marines suffered serious wounds when a man strapped with explosives approached a US checkpoint near the Baghdad neighborhood of Saddam City and blew himself up. Last week, two Iraqi women blew themselves up in an attack on US forces, killing three American soldiers in western Iraq. US soldiers also killed.

The US Army fears that Republican Guard soldiers and paramilitary militants may have discarded their uniforms in order to carry out suicide attacks disguised as civilians.