A young British woman known as the White Widow, Samantha Lewthwaite, is at the centre of a new Netflix documentary series titled World’s Most Wanted.
Lewthwaite, now 36, was linked, via her then-husband, to the London bombings of July 7, 2005, and has since gone on to work with the Al-Shabaab terror group in Somalia, having evaded numerous close calls as police closed in on her, according to the documentary. She has also been tied to Al-Qaeda.
Lewthwaite features as one of five episodes on people considered some of the most sought-after in the world, alongside Mexican cartel kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Russian underworld boss Semion Mogilevich.
Lewthwaite was married to London 7/7 bomber Germaine Lindsay, but pleaded her own innocence in a newspaper interview after the events, saying she was “horrified” by the attack. Soon after, however, she disappeared from view, and she has since been implicated in bombings across Africa and the Middle East.Now believed to be working with Al-Shabab, she was accused of involvement in a bombing at a bar in Mombasa, Kenya, in 2012, before being tied to the attack by Al-Shabbab on Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall in 2013, which saw 68 people perish when gunmen stormed the shopping area, shooting and throwing grenades.
Witnesses to that attack told local media that an English-speaking woman was seen at the mall, directing fighters. She is said by experts in the documentary to have taken on a “symbolic role” within the terror group — in essence one of their key figures who should be protected at all costs. Although authorities are said to have tracked her movements closely, snatching her from a phalanx of Al-Shabaab fighters is fraught with danger, experts outline on screen.
