Possibility: The idea that Samantha Lewthwaite,
29, of Buckinghamshire, might have ordered the attack - or even led it
herself - is not far-fetched at all
Last night, as the bodies were still
being counted at the shopping mall, one British woman was notably slow
to join the condemnation.
For
Samantha Lewthwaite, the daughter of a former British soldier who grew
up attending school discos in Buckinghamshire, views these awful events
as a cause for jubilation.
Kenyan
anti-terror police revealed yesterday that Lewthwaite - who is known to
many as the White Widow - may be the brains behind the operation to
bring terror to the heart of Kenya, a country once synonymous with the
sexual high-jinks of the Happy Valley expatriate set, but rapidly
becoming a new battleground in the war between Islamists and the West.
‘I
suspect this woman Lewthwaite is behind this attack,’ a senior
anti-terror source told me last night as survivors described how a woman
in a veil appeared to be commanding the other terrorists as they hunted
down and killed non-Muslim shoppers.
The idea that she might have ordered the attack – or even led it herself – is not far-fetched at all.
Having
converted to Islam as a young woman and married a man who went on to be
a 7/7 London suicide bomber, she has become a key figure in the terror
group behind this weekend’s attack.
Lewthwaite has even been involved in training a group of all-female suicide attackers at camps in lawless neighbouring Somalia.
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Mall massacre: Civilians who had been hiding
during a gun battle hold their hands in the air as a precautionary
measure before being searched by armed police leading them to safety,
inside the Westgate mall in Nairobi
It is an extraordinary,
macabre journey into darkness for the 29-year-old, who grew up as a
normal teenager in Aylesbury before meeting Jermaine Lindsay, a British
Muslim, in an online chat room when she was 17. The pair married three
years later.
When her
husband was named as one of four suicide bombers who blew up Tube trains
and a bus in 2005, killing 52 people, Lewthwaite initially condemned
her late husband’s attack and denied any knowledge of his plan.
This was a lie. More than eight
years later, Lewthwaite is one of Al Qaeda’s main recruiters in East
Africa and is an official spokesman for Al Shabaab (The People), the
terrorist group behind the horror in Nairobi.
As
well as railing against ‘infidels in the West’, Lewthwaite had
previously used a Twitter account to denounce a rival foreign terrorist
in the text-speak of a teenager.
‘Fyi [for your information] sam
lewthwaite thinks u r a irritating obnoxious contemptible little Muj
PRAT,’ she wrote. (‘Muj’ is a contraction of mujahideen – a jihadist).
Backup: More soldiers from the Kenya Defence
Force arrived to strengthen the already large numbers of troops
available to deal with the siege at the Westgate mall in Nairobi, Kenya
The object of her anger
was Omar Shafik Hammami, a former student from Alabama. Last week he was
shot dead in an ambush by terrorists loyal to the White Widow.
‘May
his fate serve as a lesson to all those who want to follow in his
footsteps as a poster boy for jihad,’ Lewthwaite wrote gleefully on
Twitter.
Teenage years: Samantha Lewthwaite grew up attending school discos in Buckinghamshire
To add to her name for
ruthlessness, the White Widow did not mention in her tweets that a
British man reputed to be her second husband was also killed in the
ambush.
Her fearless
reputation within Africa’s growing Islamic terror network has been
strengthened by her own involvement as a mujahid – or warrior – during a
series of bombings and shootings in Kenya’s tourist areas.
Known
to her devoted followers as dada muzungu – Swahili for white sister –
Lewthwaite moved to Kenya with her three children in 2007.
A
small, dumpy woman, she cut off all links with her family in Britain
and became immersed in East Africa’s Islamic terror networks, forging
links with other British fanatics who had come to Kenya to wage ‘jihad’
against non-believers. It was last year that details of Lewthwaite’s
secret new life emerged in grisly detail.
A
white woman, later identified as Lewthwaite, had led a group of
terrorists who fired grenades into a bar in Mombasa, the Kenyan coastal
tourist resort popular with Britons. Three people, including a child,
were killed and more than 50 injured.
In
truth, I was deeply sceptical when news was first leaked two years ago
about the White Widow’s alleged role as a terrorist with the group now
causing carnage in Nairobi.
Yet
now, having spent time among her acolytes in the Islamic stronghold
where she once lived near Mombasa, and in briefings with police,
prosecutors and senior investigators during subsequent investigations in
Nairobi, I have no doubt that Lewthwaite is a cold-blooded killer and a
dangerous ideologue.
Senior officers in Kenya have told me
they will kill her on sight. So far, however, she has avoided arrest by
wearing all-concealing Islamic dress as she has flitted between Somalia,
Kenya and Tanzania.
Former home: The 29-year-old grew up as a normal
teenager in Aylesbury (file picture), Buckinghamshire, before meeting a
British Muslim in an online chat room when she was 17. The pair married
three years later
Meanwhile, the group she is allied to continues to wreak havoc in the region.
Al
Shabaab grew out of the chaos of Somalia, and has seen jihadists wage a
brutal war to impose strict sharia law in the East African state.
'I suspect this woman Lewthwaite is behind this attack'
Senior anti-terror source
But Kenyan forces, supported
by Britain and America, have been waging war across the border in
Somalia in an attempt to keep the Islamists from power.
With the war against Al Shabaab in Somalia proving highly effective, Kenya’s support has made it a key enemy of the Islamists.
Even
before this weekend’s attack, the activities of Lewthwaite and her
fellow terrorists had turned Kenya into a place of fear and paranoia.
Clearly, the White Widow has a taste for blood. It remains to be seen whether she will live long enough to kill again.
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