Six security men were killed and two injured when a vehicle of the forces hit a landmine in Upper Orakzai region on Friday, security officials said. The injured security men were transferred to Kohat hospital. The device exploded as the convoy was moving through the Yakh Kandaw area of Orakzai, one of the districts where Taliban militants have fled after punishing offensives elsewhere in the northwest. "Frontier Corps troops were on a routine patrol in upper Orakzai when an IED (improvised explosive device) blast took place in Yakh Kandaw," the district's political administrator, Abdul Qadir, told French news agency. "Six security officials died on the spot while three were injured. A search operation has been launched in the area to trace the militants." A paramilitary official from the Frontier Corps said the dead included a colonel, and said two other troops were wounded. The deceased senior Pakistani military officer was identified as Colonel Yousuf. The vehicle was completely destroyed in the incident at Yakh Kandaou area. A senior security official told the news agency the convoy had been en route from the village of Ghaljo in Orakzai to the northwestern garrison town of Kohat. According to Pakistani military statistics, 2,421 army and paramilitary soldiers were killed and 7,195 wounded in fighting with militants from 2002 until April this year. Similar bomb attacks killed three Pakistani soldiers in the tribal district of Khyber on Wednesday and another three in South Waziristan on Tuesday.