Irishwoman suspected of Al-Qaeda connections

Widow of 7/7 London bomber Jermaine Lindsay on the run in Africa

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KERRY O'SHEA,

IrishCentral Staff Writer

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Samantha Lewthwaite has suspected connections to Al Qaeda

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Samantha Lewthwaite, a Co Down native, has been warned recently that she “cannot hide forever” from Kenyan police forces who are tracking her in response to her alleged connections to an al-Qaeda linked terror group. Lewthwaite is wanted for her role in a Kenyan bombing campaign that occurred last year.

The Belfast Telegraph reports that Lewthwaite (28) is a converted Muslim and widow of suicide bomber Jermaine Lindsay, who detonated a bomb in King’s Cross Station on the 7/7 London bombings which killed 26 people.

Lewthwaite is believed to have been part of a cell affiliated with Somali grouping al-Shabaab.

Last December, anti-terrorist officers in Nairobi descended on the group which was in the planning stages of a bombing for the coastal resort of Mombassa. Since then, Lewthwaite and her three children, of whom Jermaine Lindsay is believed to be the father, have been on the run.

“Unless you don’t travel or you don’t leave your home— even then someone will know where you are, but you cannot hide forever,” said Kenya’ Commissioner of Police Mathew Iteere to The Times.

The Telegraph also reports that a warrant for Lewthwaite’s arrest has officially been issued when it was discovered she was using a fraudulent South African passport under the name Natalie Faye Webb.

On Friday, Lewthwaite’s father, a former British soldier who served in Northern Ireland in the 1970s, expressed concern about his daughter to The Sun newspaper.

“I just wish she would get in touch,” said her father Andy Lewthwaite.

American CIA officials are now involved with the hunt as well, along with members of Scotland Yard and the Metropolitan Police.

Lewthwaite was born to a British soldier and Irish Catholic in Co Down in 1983. Later, the family moved to London and Samantha found comfort with Muslim neighbors when her parents separated when she was 11 in 1995. At age 17, she officially converted to the religion. Lewthwaite met former husband Jermaine Lindsay in an online chatroom while she was studying for her conversion to Muslim. She initially refused to believe that her husband Lindsay played a role in the 7/7 London bombings until forensic evidence was released which officially attached him to the attack. She did, however, admit to being “abhorred” by the attacks, and that her husband’s mind had been poisoned by radicals.

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