Pakistan's displaced head home, blast rocks village

JALOZAI CAMP, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan began on Monday to send home about two million people who fled their homes two months ago because of an army assault on Taliban militants in the Swat valley.

But a blast at a suspected militant explosives cache in Punjab province and the arrest of 13 suspected al Qaeda militants in the southwest served as a reminder of the scale of the challenge the government still faces in fighting insurgency and sectarian violence. Thirteen people were killed.

The army launched the offensive in Swat in late April after militants took over a district just 100 km (60 miles) from Islamabad, raising fears for Pakistan's stability.

The ensuing exodus was one of the biggest human migrations of recent times, stretching Pakistan's resources to breaking point and prompting a global appeal for humanitarian help.

The military says it has now pushed the Taliban out of their former bastion of Swat, northwest of Islamabad, and the government is keen to move the displaced back to their homes.

Assured that it is safe, a few are starting to venture home.

In the dusty tent camp of Jalozai, already baking hot in the early morning sun, buses and trucks were lined up on Monday to take a first batch of people back to their homes.

"Thank God we're going back," said farmer Qaiser Khan. "I don't know who's right and who's wrong. We want peace and if there are terrorists, miscreants, they should be eliminated once and for all."

Most of the refugees moved in with family or friends but nearly 300,000 were settled in tent camps.

Their plight is a sensitive issue for the government, which could see support for its more than two-month drive against the Taliban eroded if they are seen to be suffering unduly.

Fawad Ali, a 30-year-old barber, was loading his belongings, including donated bags of flour and lentils, onto the back of a truck as his family waited nearby.

GONE FOR GOOD?

He said he hoped the Taliban had gone for good.

"We're pinning our hopes on the government's efforts because we're jobless. They banned our business," Ali said, referring to a Taliban ban on barbers cutting men's hair.

"Hopefully, things will be different and I can feed my family," Ali said.

Chief minister of the North West Frontier Province Amir Haider Khan Hoti told a group of people going home the Taliban would be finished off.

"We will confront these elements, we will confront them together ... I assure you that in this war of survival for Pakistan we, and you, will win," Hoti said.

Across the country in a village near Mian Channu in central Punjab province, explosives believed to have been stored by militants ignited in a house used to teach children the Koran, killing 13 people and wounding scores.

Rana Sanaullah, the provincial law minister, said police had arrested the owner of the house, a former activist of the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, a banned Sunni Muslim militant group involved in sectarian violence against minority Shi'ite Muslims.

Thirteen suspected al Qaeda militants, including four Kuwaiti and two Saudi nationals, were arrested by security forces near Quetta, capital of the southwestern province of Baluchistan. Security forces also recovered explosive-fitted jackets used for suicide bombing and foreign currency, a security official said.

Security was tight on the road back to Swat, with many people heading back on their own forced to wait while identity checks were made.

Reporters who have visited Swat's main town say there was some damage to homes in the fighting, but not much. Many of the refugees have lost their crops, however, and will need support for many months, aid workers say.

"I'm not sure whether my house is there or has been destroyed, but still I want to go back because it's my home," said Abdul Khaliq Khan, heading back to his village from Jalozai.

The government-appointed chief of Jalozai camp said no one was being forced to go home and the 108 families due to leave the camp on Monday were all going voluntarily, a central concern of the United Nations.

"It'll pick up once they get back there and contact people here to tell them about the situation," said the camp leader, Tahir Orakzai. "They have been living in hell ... They're desperate to return."

In Barikot, in the south of Swat where some people were returning, a senior security official said authorities needed the help of villagers to keep the peace.

"The area has been completely secured but if they want peace to be sustained, residents should not behave like silent spectators and pin-point miscreants to law enforcement agencies," said the official who declined to be identified.

(Additional reporting by Adrees Latif, Zeeshan Haider and Gul Yousafzai; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Jason Subler and Myra MacDonald)