“We took a decision to suspend the licence of some satellite channels that adopted language encouraging violence and sectarianism,”  Mujahid Abu al-Hail of the Communications and Media Commission told AFP on Sunday.

Al Jazeera has not been formally notified of the ban it said.

The ban includes 9 other satellite TV channels.

The move comes after a wave of violence that began on Tuesday with clashes between security forces and Sunni Arab protesters in northern Iraq that has killed a total of more than 170 people.

The violence is the deadliest so far linked to demonstrations that broke out in Sunni areas of the Shia-majority country.

The protesters have called for the resignation of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for allegedly targeting their community.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called for peace in a speech on Iraqi TV on Saturday.

In his speech, he said sectarian conflict had returned to Iraq “because it began in another place in this region” – a clear reference to Syria.

The protesters have called for the resignation of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite, and railed against authorities for allegedly targeting their community.

U.N. special representative to Iraq Martin Kobler, who has condemned the 5-day violence in Northern Iraq, said Thursday that civilian and government leaders must work together to calm Iraq’s society.

Yves Debay, a French journalist reporting for the magazine Assaut, was shot by a sniper in Aleppo on 17 January. Mohamed Al-Messalma, a Syrian journalist also known as Mohamed Al-Horani, was killed the next day while covering fighting in Bousra Al-Harir, a suburb of the southern city of Deraa. He worked for Al-Jazeera.

Reporters Without Borders reiterates its concern about the deteriorating security conditions for reporters in Syria. “Journalists are being targeted with increasing frequency and the rate of deliberate killings is accelerating dangerously,” the media freedom organization said.

Debay was a former soldier who created two magazines specialized in military matters, Raids in 1986 and Assaut in 2005.

Al-Jazeera said Al-Horani was killed by a regular army sniper. Aged 33, he had worked for the Qatar-based TV news channel for more than a year. He had previously been an anti-government activist.

According to the Reporters Without Borders tally, at least 21 journalists and 49 citizen-journalists have been killed in connection with their reporting in Syria since the start of the uprising and the ensuing crackdown in March 2011.

Reporters Without Borders is also concerned about Mosaab Al-Hamadi, the Syria correspondent of Al-Arabiyya, Sky News Arabic and other TV stations, who is being held by an opposition group.