The violence is believed to have begun after news spread that Muslims had been killed by Christian youths in an attack on a bus.
Nigerian soldiers fired into the air to disperse youths burning vehicles and tyres in Jos in protest at the killings, villagers said on Saturday.
The Muslims were on their way back from a wedding when they were attacked late on Friday after their bus got lost near a predominantly Christian village, which was at the centre of ethnic and religious clashes last year, witnesses said.
"We received a report ... that youths blocked the road and attacked them inside their bus, killing seven people, while one escaped," said Ahmed Garba, an official from Nigeria's Muslim umbrella group Jama'atu Nasril Islam.
Muslim youths set up burning barricades in parts of the Kwararasa neighbourhood of Jos when news of the attack on the bus spread, but a military taskforce which has been policing the city since last year's unrest was able to disperse them.
Plateau state, of which Jos is the capital, lies in Nigeria's "Middle Belt" where the mostly Muslim north meets the largely Christian south. The region is seen as a potential flashpoint ahead of nationwide elections in April.
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