Somalia's transitional government has ordered the closure of four major news outlets in the capital, Mogadishu.

Officials issued a letter Monday ordering the al-Jazeera network and three local private radio stations - Shabelle, Holy Koran, and HornAfrik - to shut down their operations immediately.

A government spokesman, Abdirahman Dinari, said that now there is a government in place, the media outlets need to get a license, and, in his words, "avoid causing unrest by airing unconfirmed reports."

The U.N.-backed Somali interim government declared three months of martial law on Saturday.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.