Nairobi – A UK woman being sought by counter-terrorist officers in Kenya, has claimed to be a South African, reports said on Tuesday.

The Guardian reported that Kenyan officials are investigating whether UK born Samantha Lewthwaite was part of a terror cell connected to the Somali Islamist group al-Shabaab, which planned to target the city of Mombasa in 2013.

 

Lewthwaite is the widow of the King’s Cross bomber, Germaine Lindsay.

 

Eric Kiraithe, a Kenyan police spokesperson, said that Lewthwaite has had three identities.

 

Reports have emerged that the woman being sought was claiming to be Natalie Faye Webb, a South African, but it has been established that the passport she was carrying was fake.

 

Early in January a Mombasa court issued an arrest warrant for Natalie Faye Webb, following an application lodged by the anti-terrorism police unit.

 

The magistrate ordered that the “anti-terrorism police unit arrest Ms Natalie Faye Webb of Britain and a local Kenyan Habib Saleh Ghani with immediate effect”.

 

“Kenya cannot take any chance as far as acts of terrorism are concerned,” she added.

 

Based on her appearance, the names she used in Kenya and the number of children she has, the Guardian reported that there is strong circumstantial evidence that the woman is Lindsay’s wife.

 

Scotland Yard would not comment.

 

Scotland Yard counter-terrorism officers have travelled to Kenya to help in the inquiry, and there have been ongoing attempts to trace Lewthwaite in the UK.

 

Lindsay was one of four suicide bombers who detonated his rucksack bomb in London in July 2005. The 19-year-old blew up a Piccadilly Line train, killing 26 people.

 

Lindsay met Lewthwaite, the daughter of a former UK soldier, through an internet chatroom, it was established at the 7 July inquest.

 

The couple married in 2002, and had two children.

 

After the bombing, Lewthwaite had a third child by an unknown father.

 

The woman Kenyan police are seeking is suspected of linking up with other members of the terror cell in Mombasa.

 

According to the Guardian, there are thought to be between 30 and 40 Britons at present fighting in Somalia with al-Shabaab.

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