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DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan -- Taliban guerrillas recaptured the birthplace of the Pakistani Taliban leader from the Pakistani army Tuesday, inflicting the heaviest military losses so far in Pakistan's high-stakes offensive in South Waziristan, a refuge for Pakistani extremists, Afghan insurgents and al Qaeda.

A government attempt to foment a tribal uprising against the Pakistani Taliban also failed Tuesday. In a meeting with the top Pakistani official for the tribal areas, elders of the area's Mehsud clan refused a request to form a militia to battle the Taliban who have taken over their territory.

Separately, two suicide bomb blasts at a university in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, killed six people and wounded at least 20. In response, many educational institutionsannounced that they would close.

The Pakistani offensive appears to be the first serious operation against extremists in South Waziristan since 2004 when the military entered the area for the first time.

However, Kotkai, a town surrounded by mountains in the Sararogha area of South Waziristan, remained in Taliban hands late Tuesday after Pakistani forces were beaten back on the fourth day of the operation. The town is the birthplace of Hakimullah Mehsud, the head of the Pakistani Taliban.

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