White widow Samantha Lewthwaite has become the third wife of a fearsome warlord and mothered two more children while on the run as one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, MailOnline can reveal.
Lewthwaite – the widow of 7/7 suicide bomber Germaine Lindsay – is said to be hiding out with Islamic terror chief Osman Abdullahi Dhaga’ade in Somalia, according to intelligence sources.
She is described as living in a polyamorous marriage with a terror warlord husband and his two other wives.
Lewthwaite, 41, was thought previously to have had four children with two previous husbands.
It is claimed the fugitive – who is linked to a catalogue of atrocities that have led to the deaths of more than 240 people – continues to play a key role within the terror organisation, it’s claimed.
She is said to help prepare bomb vests and ‘brainwash’ suicide bombers alongside her husband who is also a propaganda chief for the outlawed fanatics.
Sources told MailOnline the fugitive was last seen on July 8 in the southern city of Jilib – the de facto capital of the Islamic Emirate of Somalia controlled by al-Shabaab.
It’s claimed Lewthwaite had also been spotted recently in other areas in the south with the family regularly switching locations for security reasons while protected by an elite squad of heavily armed bodyguards.
Samantha Lewthwaite, 41, is the Christian-born daughter of an ex-British soldier who grew up in Aylesbury, Bucks. She became a Muslim convert and married one of the 7/7 suicide bombers
After the 7/7 bombings, Lewthwaite (pictured) initially portrayed herself as another victim of the atrocity and said she had absolutely no knowledge of her husband’s murderous plans
But some months after being paid £30,000 for a national newspaper interview, Lewthwaite then left the UK and is believed to have been masterminding terror attacks from Somalia
Lewthwaite was married to British terrorist Germaine Lindsay (right) who detonated an explosive-filled rucksack on a Piccadilly Line Tube train at King’s Cross killing 26 passengers
This is what was left of the Tube train between King’s Cross and Russell Square after fanatic Lindsay detonated his bomb on July 7, 2005. A total of 52 people died in the London atrocity
An al-Shabaab source said Lewthwaite was ‘highly regarded and respected’ within the terror group.
He said: ‘She lives in several houses located in different areas. She does not move during the day but only at night and is highly protected by heavily armed elite Amniyat close protection security guards, which also includes women guards.
‘The white woman also always carries a pistol and sometimes a rifle for her protection
‘She does not stay in one location for long with her husband; they move around a lot.’
He added: ‘The white woman works closely with her husband in preparing explosives and the suicide vests
‘She is also responsible for training and brainwashing women suicide bombers before they are deployed for a mission.’
If the claims are true it would see a chilling switch in tactics for the terror organisation who are not known for using women in combat or suicide bombing missions.
Their roles have traditionally involved intelligence gathering and logistics support which are seen as crucial to the movement’s military resilience.
A Somali intelligence source said: ‘In 2023, she tried to leave Somalia to go to Yemen or Kenya.
‘But al-Shabaab failed to find her a safe route, so had to stay in Somalia. The British woman helps recruit foreign fighters, especially women.
‘She gets protection from her husband as he is high up in al-Shabaab. She speaks Somali and Arabic.’
Lewthwaite first came to public attention when her 19-year-old husband detonated an explosive-filled rucksack on a Piccadilly Line Tube train at King’s Cross in 2005.
Lewthwaite left the UK after the 7/7 bombings to live in South Africa working in a pie factory
Her ‘martyred’ husband – a Jamaican-born carpet fitter – was responsible for 26 of the 52 deaths in the coordinated wave of attacks on London’s transport network.
At the time Lewthwaite – who was eight months pregnant with the couple’s second child – portrayed herself as another victim of the July 7 London bombings.
In reality she was a dangerous extremist hell-bent on plotting her own murderous missions.
She fled the country and was responsible for a string of atrocities in Africa while remaining one step ahead of law enforcement agencies and evading capture.
A series of mugshots of the fugitive in various guises have been circulated by Interpol since the international law enforcement agency issued a warrant for her arrest in 2013.
It followed a massacre after masked gunmen ran amok at the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, murdering 71 people.
Lewthwaite is accused of planning, funding or taking part in the outrage, along with a grenade attack on a bar in the coastal resort of Mombasa the previous year in 2012 which left three dead.
She is also said to be behind a 2015 massacre at Garissa University which left 148 dead and was also linked with a terrorist attack on a hotel in Nairobi that led to the slaughter of 21 people in 2019.
Her transformation – from Home Counties prom queen to fanatical jihadist – is, controversially, being made into a feature film called Girl Next Door starring Bella Ramsey from the post-apocalyptic TV series The Last Of Us.
It was recently revealed that beyond her notorious image she has remained a fan of pop superstar Beyonce and has compiled shopping lists with British items such as Weetabix when she has been able to source them.
Lewthwaite – who is believed to have adopted a series of identities and altered her appearance through plastic surgery – is an unlikely jihadist mastermind after growing up as a shy schoolgirl in the Home Counties.
Her father, an English soldier called Andy Lewthwaite, met her mother, an Irish Catholic called Christine Allen, while he was serving in Northern Ireland during the 1970’s.
Lewthwaite was born in Banbridge in County Down, Northern Ireland, in 1983 before the family moved to the Buckinghamshire market town of Aylesbury.
She is said to have been introduced to Islam after her parents divorced in 1994 as she sought comfort from Muslim neighbours who she considered to have a stronger family network.
Lewthwaite, who changed her first name to Sherafiya after converting aged 17, enrolled in a degree course in politics and the study of religions at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London in 2002, although she dropped out before completing it.
After spending time in South Africa, Lewthwaite moved to Kenya and from there is believed to be living in Somalia. She was apparently last seen on July 8 in the southern city of Jilib – the de facto capital of the Islamic Emirate of Somalia controlled by al-Shabaab
While Lewthwaite was married to Germaine Lindsay he was plotting with three more jihadis to commit mass murder on London’s Tube network. Here are the four men – in CCTV provided by the Met Police – arriving at Luton train station at 7.21am on Thursday July 7
One of the 7/7 bombers – Hasib Hussain – was turned away from King’s Cross Tube because it was overcrowded and he was carrying a backpack so instead the bomber boarded the Number 30 double-decker bus which he blew up at Tavistock Square in London (pictured)
She first made contact with Lindsay, also known by his Islamic name, Jamal, in an internet chat room and they met face-to-face at a Stop The War march in London.
They married in October 2002 and had a son in April 2004.
Shortly afterward the 7/7 bombings, Lewthwaite, who had been given police protection in the aftermath of the atrocity, cradled her newborn daughter in her arms as she said: ‘We are victims as well.’
She added of her husband: ‘I totally condemn and am horrified by the atrocities. I never predicted or imagined that he was involved in such horrific activities. He was a loving husband and father.’
But just months later, Lewthwaite is thought to have first moved to Kenya before travelling to South Africa under her own name in 2008.
She was deported to the UK the following year and returned to give birth to her third child at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury in August 2009.
Seemingly desperate to return to Africa, Lewthwaite changed her personal details and adopted the name of Asmaa Shahidah Bint-Andrews.
She used her new identity to return to South Africa with her three children where she reportedly found work in a halal pie factory.
While there, Lewthwaite activated a third identity – that of a British nurse called Natalie Faye Webb, whose details were stolen.
She also gave birth to a fourth child at a private birthing clinic in Johannesburg.
She later crossed into Tanzania in 2011 and then returned to Kenya – where she began masterminding campaigns.
Today the children she had with Lindsay, a boy and a girl, would be around 21 and 19.
The children she had with her late second husband, an Islamist terrorist she married in Africa are aged around 16 and 15. They are also a boy and a girl.
Lewthwaite has also recently been described as the ‘main financier’ of the cell of frontline fighters.
She narrowly escaped capture in 2011 after Kenyan police discovered the bomb-making factory in a villa in Mombasa.
Hidden under a sofa, they found a haul of fuses and 60 rounds of ammunition with magazines of bullets for AK-47 assault rifles.
They arrested a British man called Jermaine Grant at the scene who was later jailed but who named Lewthwaite as the senior member of the cell.
Police discovered she was in the adjacent apartment – the flats shared the same balcony – but the passport they found was in the name of Natalie Faye Webb.
By the time they realised that the nurse had been a victim of identity theft and they had made ‘a mistake’ Lewthwaite had fled.
This is the official version of events which was reported in the media at the time, but her getaway was more controversial, it seems.
Local sources claimed officers found Lewthwaite playing with her children when they first entered her accommodation around midnight.
Now 41 Lewthwaite was believed to be a mother-of-four, having had two children with Lindsay, a boy and a girl, who would be around 21 and 19. She had two more, also a boy and a girl by her second husband, an Islamist terrorist. But now MailOnline has established, she has married for a third time, this time to another Islamic warlord and shares him with two more of his wives
They returned to their headquarters saying they thought she was ‘innocent’ of any involvement with Grant and another accomplice who was also taken into custody.
But they were strongly suspected of accepting five million Kenyan dollars (nearly £30,000) from Lewthwaite on the night, which she produced from her handbag, security sources have claimed.
The source said: ‘She left the flat immediately afterwards. Officers returned the following day after anti-terrorist officers in the UK told them who she was.
‘Several posh houses in the Nyali and Shanzu districts of the city were searched but she was nowhere to be found.’
Police discovered Lewthwaite subsequently got out of Kenya with the help of a police informer – a woman – who was the widow of a Kenyan terrorist killed in Somalia.
It is unclear whether she slipped back into the country again for the attack at the Westgate mall in Nairobi in 2013 or simply helped organise and fund the terror campaign from outside.
Among her discarded possessions was her laptop which revealed a browsing history of any ordinary young woman including websites for hair, make-up, fashion, weight loss – and beyoncefan.net.
There was a handwritten journal in which she tells herself to ‘look fabulous’ for social occasions, along with a typical weekly shopping list: ’32 eggs, 12 cheese, Weetabix, orange juice and tuna …’
On the computer she had written a poem praising 9/11 terror mastermind Osama Bin Laden while fingerprints found at the property were also said to be hers.
And police discovered through a forensic examination of the device that Lewthwaite had spent eight years researching bomb-making and searching for the deadly chemicals used to make improvised explosives devices.
