Iran regrets shuttle tragedy, Iraq calls it God's vengeance

Agencies (Moscow): Iran expressed regret on Sunday for the death of six United States astronauts in the space shuttle disaster, saying politics should not get in the way of humanitarian-ism, but it made no mention of an Israeli who also died.

"Iran distinguishes between the Iran-U.S. political row, and scientific and humanitarian issues," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi told the official IRNA news agency overnight. He said Iran hoped that "such unfortunate events will not deter scientific centers from their attempts toexplore

the undiscovered secrets of Creation."

Asefi extended Iran's condolences to the "U.S. and Indian astronauts" aboard the space shuttle Columbia which broke up on re-entry Saturday, in a reference to an Indian-born astronaut among the six Americans. But he made no reference to the death of Ilan Ramon, the first astronaut into space from Iran's archfoe Israel. The 48-year-old was a colonel in the Israeli air force and took part in the 1981 bombing of Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak.

Meanwhile, immediate popular reaction in Baghdad on Saturday to the loss of the U.S. space shuttle Columbia and its crew was that it was God's retribution.

"We are happy that it broke up," government employee Abdul Jabbar al-Quraishi said.

"God wants to show that his might is greater than the Americans. They have encroached on our country. God is avenging us," he said.

Iraqis are braced for a possible U.S.-led war to rid their country of any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons it may posses Iraq denies at has such weapons.

Car mechanic Mohammed Jaber al-Tamini noted Israeli air force Col. Ramon was among the dead when the shuttle broke up over the southwestern U.S. 16 minutes before its scheduled landing.

"Israel launched an aggression on us when it raided our nuclear reactor without any reason, now time has come and God has retaliated to their aggression," Tamini said.

There were no such signs of jubilation over the shuttle disaster in any of the Palestinian territories. The official response from the Palestinians was one of condolence.

In another development, the Russian space agency said it would go ahead on Sunday with the planned launch of a resupply vessel to the International Space Station (ISS) despile the Columbia space shuttle disaster.

The Progress M-47 was set to blast off at 12:51 GMT from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan as scheduled. Rosaviakosmos spokesman Vyacheslav Mi khailichenko said, quoted by Itar-Tass news agency. The vessel, which is unmanned and controlled from the ground was set to bring suplies to the threeman crew aboard the ISS U.S. astronauts Ken Bowersox and Don Petit and Russian Nikolai Budarin.

The U.S. suspended all space shuttle flights on Saturday after the Columbia disintegrated over Texas, killing all seven astronouts on board.