Nigerian officials say a suspected suicide bomb attack on a church in the northern city of Bauchi Sunday, has killed at least nine people and injured many others.

No one has yet taken responsibility for the attack, but the militant Islamist group Boko Haram has targeted Nigerian churches in the past.

Boko Haram has been blamed for hundreds of killings, including the Christmas day bombings of Nigerian churches that killed more than 30 people.

The group has said it wants to establish an Islamic state in northern Nigeria and does not recognize the government or the country's constitution.

The country of 150 million is about evenly divided between Muslims, who mostly live in the north, and Christians who dominate in the south.