JALOZAI CAMP, Pakistan - Pakistan on Monday began bussing home dozens of families, among nearly two million people displaced by fighting between the military and Taleban fighters in the northwest.

The government laid on buses and trucks at different camps set up by the local authorities and the UN refugee agency in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), said AFP correspondents.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani last week announced plans to start sending back the displaced from Monday, saying that the military had "eliminated" the extremists during a two-month assault in and around the district of Swat.

"There are 120 families returning to their hometowns today from Jalozai camp," a spokesman for the special support group, set up by the government to handle the displacement crisis, told AFP.

Located in the northwestern town of Nowshera, the camp had hosted nearly 4,000 families, according to the website of the Emergency Response Unit.

"It's a very big day for me because I'm returning home today with my family members," 29-year-old Shakir Zada told AFP before boarding a bus at Jalozai destined to take him back to the southern Swat town of Barikot.

Pakistan launched an offensive against the Taleban in the northwest districts of Buner, Lower Dir and Swat after armed Islamist militants advanced to within 100 kilometres (60 miles) of Islamabad in defiance of a peace deal.

The offensive sparked a huge evacuation.

Most of the 1.9 million displaced, including about 500,000 who fled an earlier offensive last year, have crowded into relatives' homes, while others are crammed into hot and dusty refugee camps.