7/7 'white widow' is hunted for grenade attack on Kenyan bar that killed three, including young boy

The ‘white widow’ of a 7/7 London bomber is the prime suspect for a deadly terror attack in Kenya.

Samantha Lewthwaite, whose husband Jermaine Lindsay blew up a Piccadilly Line train, has been on the run since December when police foiled a plot to blow up Western hotels in Mombasa.

And officers say the Home Counties mother of three was spotted near the nightclub targeted in the just north of Mombasa Island on Sunday night.

Samantha Lewthwaite with her husband, 7/7 bomber Jermaine Lindsay who was only 19-years-old when he blew up a Piccadilly Line train at Kings Cross in 2005

A grenade was thrown into the Jericho Beer Garden killing three, including a young boy, and injuring 25.

Shortly before the attack, a white woman fitting Lewthwaite’s description was seen acting suspiciously and asking questions about the bar. She was with two Asian-looking men.

‘We suspect Samantha Lewthwaite was actively involved in the terrorist attack on the club,’ a Kenyan police official said last night.

Samantha Lewthwaite pictured in her school days aged 16-17, not long after she converted to Islam



The 28-year-old soldier’s daughter from Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire was charged in December with plotting to kill hundreds of British tourists in Mombasa.

Police found weapons and a bomb-making factory in her safe house, which was also apparently used as a make-shift bank for Somali terror group Al Shabaab.

Lewthwaite was released for unknown reasons and is thought to have taken refuge in Somalia before her return to Kenya.

‘Police believe Samantha is back in Mombasa and is playing an active role in hand grenade attacks,’ said a Kenyan security source.

A grainy photo of Lewthwaite and her husband whom she married without having spoken to in real life after meeting him online

‘A white woman, fitting Samantha’s description, was seen with two middle-aged Arab men asking questions about the bar before the attack.



'She really stands out as it is very unusual for a white woman to be here and dressed in Muslim clothes.’

The suspicious trio had also been spotted near Catholic churches in Mombasa.

University dropout Lewthwaite is being hunted by the CIA and Kenyan police.

Before her arrest in December, she had been travelling in Kenya on a false passport belonging to Natalie Faye Webb, an Essex nurse who has no links to terrorism and has never been to the East African country.



Lewthwaite was born in Northern Ireland, where her father Andrew, who was serving in the army, had met her mother Christine.

Jermaine Grant appears at Nairobi Magistrates Court believed to be Lewthwaite's accomplice in the bomb plot

They separated when she was 11 – an event friends suggest was key in her seeking solace in Islam, and converting to the faith at the age of 15.

She met King’s Cross bomber Lindsay in an Islamic chatroom when she was studying religion and politics at the School Of Oriental And African Studies in central London.

She married the Jamaican-born carpet fitter in an Islamic ceremony in Aylesbury in 2004.

When her 19-year-old husband blew himself up in 2005, claiming 26 lives, she was eight months pregnant with their second child, a daughter. She had a second son by an unknown father in 2009.

Lewthwaite’s family in Aylesbury – she is the youngest of three children – say they have not seen her for years.

Her alleged accomplice in December’s bomb plot, 29-year-old Londoner Jermaine Grant, is on trial in Mombasa.

The port city and Nairobi have suffered a series of bomb attacks since Kenyan troops entered Somalia in October to crush Islamist militants.

Hours before Sunday’s bombing the US embassy issued a warning of an imminent terrorist attack in or around Mombasa.

Police chief Aggrey Adoli said: ‘The attack occurred at about 10pm, the grenade was hurled inside a pub, but many of those wounded were just outside the bar at the entrance.

‘One of those wounded people is assisting us with investigations because he is providing contradictory statements. He is being held as a suspect.’

The Kenya Tourist Board reassured travellers, explaining that the attack happened 10km north of Mombasa Island in an area that is not frequented by tourists.

However, as a preventative measure, security in tourist zones has been stepped up.

The Kenyan Ministry of Tourism added: 'As usual, tourist hotels remain under 24-hour surveillance, and all vehicles and individuals entering malls, shopping centers and other such public areas that are frequented by tourists, are subjected to screening. This is also complemented by covert

police presence within the establishments.'



VIDEO: See the aftermath of the explosion in Mombasa...



