(CNN) -- Somalia's transitional government has offered a general amnesty to insurgent fighters in Mogadishu who surrender and promise to renounce violence. The decision made by the Cabinet over the weekend was announced Tuesday and comes after Al-Shabaab retreated from the capital, Mogadishu, early Saturday. The al Qaeda-linked group has been waging an insurgency against Somalia's transitional government since 2006. In confirming that Al-Shabaab fighters had left the city, spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage said the fighting was hardly over. "The reasons we withdrew from Mogadishu is we have made changes in our tactics of war," he told the group's radio station, Andalus. "We withdrew because we want to save lives of the poor civilians, but we will launch operations against government (and African Union) forces in the coming hours."
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NEW: Large areas of Somalia are suffering from famine
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NEW: Al Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab has been waging an insurgency since 2006
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Group retreated from the capital of Mogadishu over weekend
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Insurgents promise to keep on fighting
But the militants kept their ban on aid groups operating in their territory in southern and central @placeholder and parts of the capital.