CHOTA LAHORE: 'I want to pick up a gun and fight the Taliban and the army,' says shocked Said Quraysh, shaking with rage as he erects a tent in a camp for civilians fleeing Pakistan's fighting.

Cooked food was sitting in the cattle farmer's kitchen when intense shelling began in the village in northwest Buner district, where the Pakistan military is trying to drive out encroaching hardline Taliban insurgents.

As he heard neighbouring homes crumble under bombs, Quraysh decided the only way to keep his family safe was to flee, leaving his meal untouched.

'The attacks were not targeted, civilians were hit,' says the wizened 55-year-old, sporting a white beard and exhausted by the journey from his village to the government-run camp in neighbouring Swabi district.

He now lives under canvas and like tens of thousands of others believed to have fled military offensives against the Taliban in three districts of North West Frontier Province (NWFP), he has no idea when he can return home.

Every day, hundreds more people are streaming into this camp near Chota Lahore village on the edge of NWFP, most of them from Buner where helicopter gunships, fighter jets and ground forces launched their assault on April 28.

The government has said it is bracing to cope with half a million people displaced by the fighting, and aid agencies fear a humanitarian crisis.

Those made homeless are shocked, confused and tearful, but much of their fury is reserved for the army.

'We are angry... We left out of fear for our lives, that the government bombardment will kill us, our children, our mothers, sisters, our relatives,' says Amir Zada, a 35-year-old teacher, crouching in his fly-infested tent.

'We are not against the operation, but we are against the destruction of our property, our homes, our children, they are innocent.'

Taliban fighters first rose up in NWFP's scenic Swat district in July 2007 and flouted a February ceasefire with the government to advance into Buner and the nearby Lower Dir district last month.

'The people were afraid because the Taliban banned music and started punishing people who listened to music,' says Roshan Zari, who arrived in Swabi from Buner with her three children the day the camp opened on May 3.

'Women were punished for not wearing the burka. The women were whipped with the slings of Kalashnikovs.'

Like many of the refugees, Zari wanted the military to drive out Taliban fighters trying to impose their repressive brand of Islam on swathes of Pakistan, but she was sickened by what she saw.

'When we were leaving we saw a lot of vehicles being bombed. The bodies were lying there. We saw the body parts lying on the roadside. I think there could have been 100 people, even children,' she told AFP.

At the camp registration office, a new group of about 20 disheveled people turn up, proffering their identification cards.

'My principal was killed, his car was bombed and two people were killed,' says school clerk Muhammad Gul. He said the shelling started without warning.

'Six houses were targeted in my street.' The military was not immediately available for comment, but has said in the past that some civilian casualties are inevitable in densely populated areas and that the armed forces does everything possible to avoid collatoral damage.

Gul joins at least 1,662 other people who had already registered, moving into tents, most bearing the UN refugee agency logo, where filthy children in torn clothes meander in the dust.

Camp officials say they are readying for more, and tractors plough nearby fields to set up more tents for the expected influx.

'More than 100 families registered here in the last 24 hours. We can handle between 10,000 and 15,000 people,' says registration official Izman Ali.

Many of the displaced say they are worried that when the offensive ends, the Taliban will simply emerge from their mountain hideouts and return, while the government will not be able to pay for razed homes and lost revenue.

Wiping away tears with a grubby headscarf, Rajmala, an 18-year-old who goes by one name only, says she just wants to go home.

'This is not a life. We lost everything... we want to go back and we can only pray for peace in the valley,' she says.

'We are frightened of the Taliban and the army. If they want to fight, they should kill each other, they should not take refuge in our homes.'