- Samantha Lewthwaite was a 'key actor' in plan to attack Western-linked buildings and the Kenyan parliament
- Intelligence report leaked after U.S. raid on Al Qaeda chief in Somalia
- 'White Widow' was rumoured to be one of the attackers at Westgate Mall
British fugitive Samantha Lewthwaite has been officially named as a ‘key actor’ in an Al Qaeda-linked plot to blow up Kenya’s Parliament and the United Nations offices in Nairobi.
The so-called ‘White Widow’ - the world’s most wanted woman - is also said to have been part of a terrorist cell targeting Kenyan Defence Force camps, Western embassies and the assassination of the country’s top politicians.
A Kenyan intelligence report leaked yesterday links the widow of 7/7 suicide bomber Jermaine Lindsay to Abdulkadir Mohamed Abdulkadir, the man U.S. Navy Seals were hunting in a ‘kill or capture’ mission in Somalia at the weekend.
He is said to have been the mastermind of the multiple plots in Kenya in late 2011 and early 2012 which the report says were sanctioned by Al Qaeda’s core leadership in Pakistan.
It is the first time the Home Counties mother-of-four has been named in connection with the plots which were foiled by the Kenyan authorities, underlining her importance to Somali-based, Al Qaeda-inspired terror groups.
The 29 year-old had only been previously linked to alleged plots to blow up Western hotels in Mombasa and a grenade attack on a popular bar in the Indian Ocean resort.
Lewthwaite, who was named last month on an Interpol international arrest warrant, escaped capture in Mombasa when she produced a fraudulently obtained South African passport in another person’s name and convinced officers she was not the Briton they were hunting.
The detailed report will raise new questions over whether Lewthwaite played any role in the planning of the Westgate shopping mall attack on September 21 in which 60 people died.
In the immediate aftermath of that attack, reports suggested she may have been among the gunmen but this has now been questioned.
It will raise questions too over why there was not greater security in place at one of Nairobi’s premier shopping centres after intelligence officers spelt out in the report how a year earlier they knew of plans for an attack there.
The National Intelligence Service report, in an entry dated exactly one year before the mall attack, said operatives of the Somali-based Islamist group Al Shabaab were in Nairobi ‘and are planning to mount suicide attacks on undisclosed date, targeting Westgate Mall and Holy Family Basilica.’
Two suspects were believed in possession of suicide vests, grenades and AK-47 assault rifles, the report said.
The men who attacked the Westgate mall and held off besieging Kenyan troops for several days were armed with grenades and AK-47s, but apparently had no suicide vests.
It was unclear if one planned attack on the mall was foiled and then carried out again or if it was merely postponed for a year by Al Shabaab, which claimed responsibility for the carnage.
The internal document shows that Kenyan intelligence officers have detailed information about plots and individuals tasked with carrying them out.
Other targeted sites included the capital’s Hilton Hotel, the Yaya shopping mall, the office of the prime minister, and possibly the embassies of the United States - which was blown up by Al Qaeda in 1998 - and of Britain and Israel.
Source - Dailymail
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