Find the white widow: Fingerprints confirm terror suspect IS British mother, say Kenyan detectives

• Fugitive terror suspect wanted for role in bomb plot named as 7/7 widow
• Samantha Lewthwaite was wife of suicide bomber Jermaine Lindsay
• Diary with tips on how to be a mujihadeen's wife unearthed
  

By Rebecca Evans for the Daily Mail
Updated: 03:07 EST, 6 March 2012

Convert: Detectives believe fugitive terror suspect wanted for her role in a bomb plot is 7/7 widow Samantha Lewthwaite, pictured as a teenager

Kenyan police say British colleagues have confirmed that a fugitive terror suspect wanted for her role in a bomb plot is 7/7 widow Samantha Lewthwaite.

Senior anti-terror police sources in Mombasa yesterday said fingerprints of the woman being sought over an Al Qaeda-linked plan to attack Western tourist resorts had been sent to London.

They said Scotland Yard found them to be a match for the wife of suicide bomber Jermaine Lindsay.

Interviewed on condition of anonymity, a Kenyan police chief said: ‘Samantha Lewthwaite’s fingerprints have been confirmed by detectives we have been working with from the UK.

'This woman is still in the country. She will not escape if she passes through exit points at the border because of her fingerprints.

‘We are confident we are looking for the white widow.'

Senior Assistant Commissioner Ambrose Munyasya, head of Mombasa's criminal investigations department, added: 'We are looking for her and if we get to know where she is we will go there.

'I have a strong team of officers in anti-terrorism and they are determined to find her.'

However, the Metropolitan force is still refusing to comment on the foiled Christmas bomb plot against luxury hotels and shopping centres in Mombasa.

It insists that ‘this is a matter for the Kenyan authorities’, even though a large team of British anti-terror officers is in Nairobi, working with the CIA to assist in the investigation.

On the radar: A woman believed to be Lewthwaite was photographed by undercover police in August at the Kenyan-Tanzanian border, accompanied by a man believed to be Habib Ghani, whom police describe as 'dangerous'

Married to a bomber: Lethwaite with Jermaine Lindsay who blew himself up in the 2005 terror attack near Russell Square which claimed 26 lives

Muslim convert Lewthwaite, 28, a soldier’s daughter from Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, is wanted by Kenyan police who believe she was the ‘main financier and bomb-making expert’ for the Somalian Al Qaeda affiliate Al Shabaab.

She fled with her three children following a raid in December on several safe houses in Mombasa used by the terror cell.

Kenyan police say they found her diary - where she detailed what it took to be a mujihadeen's wife.

The woman police claim is Lewthwaite arrived in Kenya using a forged South African passport with the name of Essex nurse Natalie Faye Webb and a picture bearing a striking resemblance to Lewthwaite.

Explosive: Chemicals for bomb making were found during a raid in the Bakarani region of Mombasa in Kenya

Evidence: The woman rented several houses and apartments in Mombasa, including a villa in Shanzu where police found AK47 shells, pictured, hidden in the sewers

Miss Webb, who has never been to Kenya, had been the victim of identity theft. Police issued a warrant for the arrest of Lewthwaite in January after discovering a bomb-making factory and AK47 ammunition following a raid on several houses linked to the terror cell.

The Mail has revealed how a woman believed to be Lewthwaite was photographed by undercover police in August at the Kenyan-Tanzanian border, which shows  she was on the anti-terror radar even then.

She was accompanied by a man believed to be Habib Ghani, from Hounslow, Middlesex, whom police describe as ‘dangerous’.

Months later, she managed to escape following a raid on an Al Shabaab safe house in Bakarani – a crime-ridden Mombasa ghetto synonymous with Islamic fundamentalists – in mysterious circumstances following suspicions of police corruption.

An inquiry has been launched into how this happened. The woman is believed to be on the run in East Africa with her children and Ghani.

Two co-conspirators, Jermaine Grant, 29, a Briton, and Kenyan Foaud Abubakar are under arrest.

Grant, from Newham, east London, is due in court tomorrow. His Kenyan wife, who he married just 24 hours before his arrest, has also been charged.

The woman arrived in Mombasa in November and rented several houses and apartments, including a villa in Shanzu where police found AK47 shells hidden in the sewers, the forged passport and a smashed laptop computer.

Lewthwaite was seven months’ pregnant when her husband blew himself up on July 7, 2005, claiming 26 of the 52 lives lost in the London bombings. Her family in Aylesbury say they have not seen her for years.

Search: Sheik Ali Hussein head of the mosque in the Bakrani area of Mombasa said that Lewthwaite had attended his mosque on a number of occasions

Urgent hunt: The false passport of 'Natalie Faye Webb' - thought to be terror widow Samantha Lewthwaite - who has allegedly escaped from Mombasa with bomb fuses