Former Al shabaab chief to assist in the capture of terror suspect Samantha Lewthwaite

A terror chief turned supergrass is ready to give up White Widow Samantha Lewthwaite.

Special forces are preparing for a mission to seize the British fugitive “within days”, sources close to the investigation say.

Surrendered al-Shabaab commander Zakariye Ismail Hersi told investigators the wanted mum-of-four is being guarded by an elite suicide squad in the terrorist hotbed of Ras Kiyamboni on the Kenyan Somali border.

He claimed Lewthwaite, 30, is a key commander in the al-Qaeda-linked gang, charged with mobilising troops, and is linked to a specialist cell that has been attacking Kenyan forces along the border.

Now he is set to give information to help troops capture her in a dramatic bid to cut any sentence handed to him.

If true, his information is “the most detailed on Lewthwaite in years”, a senior intelligence source said.

But some senior intelligence chiefs are said to be “highly sceptical” about the information he has given under armed guard in Somali capital Mogadishu.

The source said: “The information provided about her whereabouts is very precise.

“Every effort will be made to capture her but precautions must be taken. She is believed to be guarded by highly trained terrorists including an elite suicide team.”

Lewthwaite fled Britain in the aftermath of the London 7/7 bombings in 2005, in which her first husband Germaine Lindsay and three other men killed 52 people.

She has been linked to a string of bomb attacks in east Africa and is believed to have ordered at least seven murders in Kenya, including the ­executions of two radical Muslim clerics and two respected Protestant pastors.

Hersi, who had a £2million bounty on his head as intelligence chief for al-Shabaab, surrendered to Somali police near the border with Kenya last year.

standardmedia.co.ke