A British woman who converted to Islam and married a terrorist may have been part of the armed gang that attacked a shopping mall in Kenya, but officials Tuesday urged caution about press reports identifying Samantha Lewthwaite as one of the terrorists killed when security forces stormed Nairobi’s Westgate Mall.

“I’m aware that there have been reports of a British woman being involved,” British Home Secretary Theresa May said at a press conference Tuesday morning, “but until we have seen the investigations completed, it is not possible to give further details to confirm or deny that issue.”

Lewthwaite became notorious as the “White Widow” after her husband, Jermaine Lindsay, was one of the Islamic suicide bombers who committed the so-called “7/7″ terrorist attacks that killed 52 people on London’s subways and buses on July 7, 2005. Lewthwaite, 29, moved to Kenya in 20097 with her three children and became an al-Qaeda recruiter and spokeswoman for the terror network’s Somalia group, al-Shabaab.

Sixty-two people were reportedly killed and 170 wounded by Muslim gunmen in the Westgate attack. Kenyan officials said Monday they had gained control of the Nairobi mall and that no more hostages were believed to be held by the terrorists. During the three-day crisis, Twitter accounts associated with al-Shabaab claimed that British, American and Canadian jihadists were among those who committed the mall massacre, which some officials confirmed.

“Kenyan Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed said Monday that ‘two or three Americans’ and ‘one Brit’ were among the perpetrators of the attack,” the Washington Post reported. The gunmen were “clearly a multinational collection from all over the world,” said Kenya Defense Forces commander Gen. Julius Karangi. “We are fighting global terrorism here.”

Officials in South Africa are trying to determine if Lewthwaite traveled to Kenya using a forged South African passport, Agence France-Presse reported. The fake passport identified Lewthwaite as “Natalie Faye Webb.” South African Home Affairs spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa said officials are conducting a “thorough investigation.”

Lewthwaite grew up in Ayelsbury, Buckinghamshire, converted to Islam as a teenager and met her husband through the Internet. The couple had one baby and Lewthwaite was pregnant with their second child when her husband killed himself in the suicide bombing of a London subway, a blast that claimed the lives of 26 people. Lewthwaite has become an almost “mythological figure,” BBC reporter Peter Taylor said: “If she is dead then she would have achieved the kind of martyrdom that her husband Germaine Lindsay achieved.” A Kenyan newspaper said “multiple survivors of the attack” at the Nairobi mall said a woman “appeared to be giving orders to the attackers”:

Two Radio Africa Group employees caught in the gun battle said a woman appeared to be giving orders. One said her face was covered but she had a woman’s arms and body. She was not carrying a gun but had large bag around her waist.
They said she would speak English in a foreign accent and then her orders would be translated into Swahili and the attackers would advance.
“The woman was not armed but as soon as she issued orders, the men would go on a killing rampage,” one employee said.
“It was definitely a woman because we could tell it from the voice,” said another employee.

A December 2010 raid on a home in Kenya failed to capture Lewthwaite but turned up a cache of bomb-making materials. Another British convert to Islam, Jermaine Grant, went on trial Tuesday in Mombassa for explosive charges resulting from that raid. Authorities say Grant was working with Lewthwaite.

READ MORE:

• Dominic Wabala and Peter Ngetich, The Star (Kenya): Was British Woman Among Terrorists?
• Agence France-Presse: South Africa probes passport of ‘British woman’ in Kenya attack
• Jamie Dettmer, Daily Beast: Were Americans Among the Al-Shabab Nairobi Mall Attackers?
• Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post: Gunmen who stormed Kenya mall reportedly spoke English, were from different countries
• Donald Douglas, American Power: British ‘White Widow’ Killed as Security Forces Storm #Westgate Mall?
• BBC: Profile: Samantha Lewthwaite
• Agence France-Presse: Security tight in Kenya for British Islamist trial