Flight of bomber’s widow ‘in terror cell’

A July 7 bomber’s widow, suspected of being part of a terror cell, has fled Kenya for Somalia, a top police official has said.

Samantha Lewthwaite, 28, arrived in the East African country last year as part of a group which allegedly planned to bomb the region’s coast over Christmas and New Year.

But the mother-of-three, who is said to have been in charge of the plot’s finances, is now understood to have entered Somalia, the Kenyan police officer said.

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Lewthwaite was married to suicide bomber Jermaine Lindsay, 19, who carried out the most deadly of the July 7 attacks, killing 26 people at King’s Cross. She became the focus of police attention after it emerged Kenyan detectives were hunting a woman using several identifies – including hers.

Kenyan officers believe Lewthwaite – who is reportedly pregnant and travelling with her children – was most recently using the name Natalie Faye Webb and carrying a forged South African passport.

The police official said anti-terrorism officers suspect Lewthwaite was working with Musa Hussein Abdi, the Kenyan man who was shot dead with al-Qaida boss Fazul Abdullah Mohammed in Somalia in June.

Anti-terror police found a British woman – believed to be Lewthwaite – in Abdi’s house in December 20 but let her go after being fooled by a fake passport.

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Scotland Yard said it had sent a team of officers to Kenya to assist authorities with a terror-related incident.

Lewthwaite converted to Islam at the age of 15 and married Lindsay in 2002. Originally from Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, she and Lindsay lived in Huddersfield at first, and then in Bradford for a short time, before moving to Aylesbury to be closer to Lewthwaite’s family.

She was eight months pregnant with their second child when Lindsay, 19, brought terror to London’s public transport network with co-conspirators Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, and Hasib Hussain, 18, all from Leeds.

She has married again, to a Kenyan who has fled the country.

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