You know that someone has reached international notoriety when they have been given a nickname - and Samantha Lewthwaite is commonly referred to as the "White Widow". A prominent figure on Interpol list of wanted criminals, Lewthwaite is being hunted for alleged involvement in a number of atrocities affecting many nations - including the 2013 Nairobi shopping mall massacre, the bar attack in Mombasa during Euro 2012 and the planned bombing of a Kenyan resort in 2011. It is alleged that Lewthwaite, who was widowed after her husband Germaine Lindsay committed suicide via explosion during the London 7/7 attacks in 2005, is a prominent member of Somali radical Islamic militant group Al-Shabaab and is a key strategist and planner for the splinter group. If Lewthwaite is complicit in all the atrocities she has been accused of being allegedly involved in, then more than 100 people have been murdered as a result of her actions. She is arguably the most-wanted suspected terrorist in the whole of the western world. Interestingly, the nickname "White Widow" is a play on words and refers to the death of Lindsay, the common theme of referring to Chechen female suicide bombers as "black widows", as well as the intriguing fact that Lewthwaite is actually a white, Northern-Irish Christian who converted to Islam by the age of 17.
NUFC editor for WhatCulture.com/NUFC. History graduate (University of Edinburgh) and NCTJ-trained journalist. I love sports, hopelessly following Newcastle United and Newcastle Falcons. My pastimes include watching and attending sports matches religiously, reading spy books and sampling ales.
