The media have linked her to the Kenyan shopping centre attack and the speculation has been fuelled by the Kenyan foreign minister who has said one of the militants from the Somali-based al-Shabaab group was a British woman.But BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner said Whitehall officials continue to advise caution about the reports. There has been no confirmation of Lewthwaite's involvement, either as an attacker, organiser or fundraiser. Al-Shabaab has denied that any women were involved.
Lewthwaite was first thrust into the spotlight after the 7 July bombings in London in 2005, as the widow of bomber Germaine Lindsay, who killed 26 people when he blew up a Piccadilly Line Tube train near King's Cross.A Muslim convert dubbed the 'White Widow' by much of the media, she has no terrorism record in the UK but is currently on the run from Kenyan Police over alleged links to a terrorist cell that planned to bomb the country's coast. After the 7 July attacks, Lewthwaite condemned her husband's actions as 'abhorrent', saying trips to radical mosques had "poisoned his mind"."How these people could have turned him and poisoned his mind is dreadful," she told The Sun. "He was an innocent, naive and simple man. I suppose he must have been an ideal candidate."She was known to be in Kenya and, last year, officials said she had fled to Somalia and the police were hunting a woman who used several identities, including hers. BBC journalist Peter Taylor, who has just returned from Kenya where he was making a Panorama programme on al-Shabaab, said there was still a lot of speculation about the group involved in the attack on the shopping centre. However, he said: "If, as the foreign minister says, there was a British woman involved 'who had done this many times before', there is a strong possibility it may well be Samantha Lewthwaite. Lewthwaite attended the Grange School in Aylesbury
"If she is dead then she would have achieved the kind of martyrdom that her husband Germaine Lindsay achieved." He said Lewthwaite had become an almost 'mythological figure' and the search for her had been going on a 'long time'."At the time of the 7/7 bombings, the impression was that she disapproved and was highly critical of her husband's action," he added."Then she disappeared off the radar and turns up again in Kenya. It would appear she became involved with al-Shabaab to fight jihad as her husband believed he was doing when he bombed the Tube."
