KANO, Nigeria — An official says gunmen have killed 15 people in a daylight attack near a northern Nigerian city where a radical Islamist sect last week killed 185 people.

Zamfara state spokesman Ibrahim Muhammad Birnin Magaji said Friday that the gunmen burned the bodies of their victims in a village in Katsina state on Thursday, about 120 miles (200 kilometres) from Nigeria's largest northern city of Kano.

Birnin Magaji said the Muslim traders had been travelling from Zamfara state in a minibus to sell their goods in a market in Katsina state.

He said authorities suspect an armed robbery attack, but no goods were reported missing.

The killings come days after the Boko Haram sect claimed responsibility for co-ordinated attacks in Kano. However, Birnin Magaji said it was unlikely that the sect was involved because the area had seen similar attacks.