Smoke billows from the southern Iraqi town of Basra as a convoy of British troops head for a battle on the outskirts of the town

AS SAYLIYAH, Qatar, March 29 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Claiming Iraqi paramilitaries were holding a meeting inside, U.S. warplanes bombarded late Friday, March 28, a two-story building in the besieged Iraqi city of Basra with 200 Iraqis, all believed to be civilians, inside.

Firing laser-guided missiles, a  pair of F-15E Strike Eagles attacked the building, the U.S. Today reported Saturday, March 29, quoting a U.S. Central Command statement.

The statement claimed the warplanes were given the go-ahead after spotting an "emerging target," adding that a church 300 yards from the two-story building escaped undamaged.

The statement further said that the central command  had no information on what happened to the building's occupants after the attack.

Earlier on Friday, Iraqi fighters stationing in Basra fired mortars on occupation British forces who besieged the city.

Also on Friday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he was not surprised about the strong resistance facing U.S. and British soldiers in Iraq after a week of deadly combat.

"I don't think anything surprised me," Blair told ABC television from the U.S. presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland.

"I think what we expected is what we've got, which is that there will be fierce resistance from those people loyal to Saddam, who owe their existence to his regime, who have terrorized the local population."

Blair, who is outside Washington winding up a two-day war council with President George W. Bush, criticized questions raised in recent days about the length of the conflict as "speculations."

"We're barely a week into the campaign," he said.

For his part, Iraqi Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf told a press conference in Baghdad Friday that 116 people had been killed and 695 wounded in the fighting in Basra so far.