WHITE WIDOW

So maybe Wednesday it will be Jannah, (Islamic paradise) I look around at how beautiful Jihad is, It’s alive in Kenya, It’s alive in me, And I’m breathing Jihad, It’s my time.”

Samantha Lewthwaite 

This is an excerpt from a poem written by Samantha Lewthwaite, the most wanted woman in the world. She is sought by security agencies in Kenya, South Africa, Britain and the US.

She has long been believed to be hiding in Kenya and posted the poem on Twitter in September last year.

The 29-year-old mother of three reveals her ruthless intention: “I’d rather be receiving my martyrdom, think I’ll get ready… and buy a vest.”

As gunmen stormed the Westgate mall in Nairobi at about mid-day on Saturday, unleashing indiscriminate violence on defenceless men, women and children, some witnesses recalled spotting a veiled woman in the group. They said she appeared to be commanding the others to shoot non-Muslims.

Lewthwaite, nicknamed “The White Widow” by Western media, was once married to Jermaine Lindsay, the bomber who blew himself up in a train at London’s King’s Cross on July 7, 2005, killing 26 other people.

Lewthwaite denounced his actions and soon disappeared with the children. Her name only came to light again when she was linked with an investigation by Kenyan police into an Al-Shabaab terror cell planning attacks on Western targets in Mombasa early last year.

Their suspicions were raised when in November 2012, Briton Jermaine Grant was charged in a Mombasa court with being an Al-Shabaab terrorist. Police said a woman escaped during his arrest.

Grant’s home was described as a “bomb factory” by the prosecution after chemicals similar to those used in the July 7, 2005 London blast were found.

Lewthwaite’s name has cropped up in other investigations and she was recently linked to British terror suspect Habib Ghani aka Osama al Britani, who was killed recently in Somalia after falling out with Al-Shabaab.

She remains the main suspect in a grenade attack at Jericho Beer Garden in Mombasa where three people died and over 30 were injured.

Al-Shabaab spokesperson Mohammad Usman Arus, though, denied on BBC radio that any Briton, American or woman had taken part in the attack, saying: “We do not send our sisters out on missions.”

The Sunday Mirror reported in September last year that detectives in South Africa were leading the hunt for Lewthwaite, whose South African passport bears the name Natalie Faye Webb. They were investigating claims she was hiding in central Kenya.

Chief of General Staff Julius Karangi on Monday said the army had “an idea who these people are but due to the sensitivity of the operation we will not divulge.”

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 NATION