President Uhuru Kenyatta has called on Muslims to help in the fight against extremism, his office says.

Mr Kenyatta went to the Jamia Mosque in the capital, Nairobi, to break the fast on Thursday night.

“It’s a historic visit being the first time a sitting Kenyan president visited and prayed at a mosque,” his office says.

According to the statement from the president’s office, Kenyatta called for unanimity in the country and said that the Muslim community "should work closely with the government in fighting crime and extremism”.

 He added in the statement: “When we see violence occasioned, this violence is not occasioned by Muslims or Christians but by criminals.

"It is this criminal that we fight because they are enemies of Muslims and Christians and all other religious groups”.

There have been number of assaults operated in Kenya by the Somali-based militant group Al-Shabab in recent years.

Among the most deadly was an assault on a university campus in Garissa in 2015 in which nearly 150 people died.

In January this year, at least 21 people died in an assault on a hotel and office complex in Nairobi.

Kenyatta has thereby used the historic visit to ask Muslims to help fight militants