Updated

Nigeria's military says at least 12 people died in multiple blasts that rocked a Christian area in Nigeria's northern and mainly Muslim Kano city.

Military Joint Task Force spokesman Ikedichi Iweya says "a couple" of people were wounded in Monday night's attack by suspected members of the Islamic extremist Boko Haram network.

But an Associated Press reporter watched security forces ferrying scores of wounded to hospitals after the explosions around a bar where people where drinking, playing snooker and table tennis.

Nigeria is fighting an Islamic uprising by militants based mainly in the northeast. The government has declared a state of emergency there. Kano city and state are in the northwest and not part of that emergency.

Boko Haram, which means "Western education is forbidden," wants Islamic law in Nigeria.