Global search for the 'White Widow,' terrorist suspect and mother-of-three

By: ANTOINETTE KELLY | Published Monday, March 12, 2012, 8:13 AM | Updated Monday, March 12, 2012, 8:13 AM

Police are hunting for an Co Down mother-of-three who is now allegedly one of the most dangerous terror suspects in the world.

Samantha Lewthwaite has been nicknamed the 'White Widow' because she was married to 7/7 bomber Jermaine Lindsay, whom she met after her family moved to Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. Lindsay killed himself and 26 passengers when he detonated a bomb in a rucksack on a Tube train traveling between King's Cross and Russell Square in July 2005.

Lewthwaite maintains she had no idea of her husband's plans. A week after the attack, Lewthwaite, who had taken the Muslim name of Sherafiyah, rang the police to report her husband missing, according to the Belfast Telegraph. She apparently wouldn't accept the investigator's claims that he'd been the bomber until they produced evidence. She claimed her husband's mind was poisoned by radicals.

However, a different picture has now emerged of Lewthwaite, who claimed to abhor the bomb attacks. Kenyan authorities have released a passport photograph of a woman wanted for questioning after a bomb factory was found in her house in coastal Mombasa.

The name on the passport was Natalie Faye Webb, an Essex nurse, but the photo appears to be Lewthwaite.

Nairobi police claim they were tipped off that al-Qaida-linked terrorists were planning to blow up hotels and shopping centers on the east coast of Kenya last Christmas and New Year.

Lewthwaite was said to have been chief financier of the operation. There are also claims she instructed colleagues in bomb-making.

Residents of a strict Muslim district of Mombasa said they knew Lewthwaite as “the white woman."

Kenyan authorities believe Lewthwaite had other safe houses — and another man, British terror suspect Habib Saleh Ghani.

Although Lewthwaite hasn’t been in touch with her family in Britain for years, her father Andy has denied that his daughter could be the terrorist portrayed by Kenyan police.

“She couldn’t be involved in anything like that,” he said.

Lewthwaite, the youngest of three children, was born on December 5, 1983. After her family separated in 1995 she turned to Islam for comfort, converting in her mid-teens. She met Lindsay, a carpet fitter from Jamaica, on an Islamic chatroom. Lewthwaite's parents did not attend the wedding.

Lewthwaite claimed that her relationship with Lindsay soured after she found out he was having an affair. She said she'd thrown him out of the house just days before the July attack.

She was burnt out of her home after the identities of the London bombers were confirmed. She disappeared off the radar until the police in Kenya published several images of the woman for whom they have an arrest warrant.

There are indications Lewthwaite has left Kenya and fled to Somalia.

She has reportedly been back home to Bandbridge to visit her mother and to celebrate a family birthday. She allegedly told friends that she was shocked to hear about the reports about the 'White Widow.'