DUBAI, Mar 23, 2007 – Somali authorities have ordered Al Jazeera television to stop reporting from the African country, the Arab satellite broadcaster said on Thursday.

The television showed what it said was a letter from a Somali security body ordering the broadcaster to cease its activity immediately. The letter gave no reason for the measure.

There was no immediate comment from Somali officials.

"Al Jazeera, while expressing its disappointment of the decision to close our office ... reasserts its commitment to the principles of the free press and defends the right of viewers to know what happens across the world with impartiality and integrity," Wadah Khanfar, Al Jazeera's director general, said in a statement.

Al Jazeera's office in Mogadishu was one of four outlets briefly closed by authorities in January after martial law was declared in Somalia after a government and Ethiopian military drive against the Islamists who had controlled the capital since June and moved on to capture large areas of the country.

A United Nations human rights expert last month condemned what he called threats to press freedom in Somalia, citing the arrests of three journalists in the breakaway enclave Somaliland and the brief closure of the four outlets.

Government officials had accused the four outlets, also including two of the largest local independent broadcasters, of being biased during the war, a charge which they all denied and of heightening tensions by airing unconfirmed reports.

Source: Reuters