Wahid, a former Navy officer, defected to Somalia’s al-Shabaab network in 2007
and has been named by a former Kenyan soldier as an associate of a man who
helped a terror gang attack the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi last
month.

Lewthwaite, 29, crossed from Tanzania into Kenya in February 2011, with Wahid,
and they were photographed at the land border.

Another photograph from late 2011 recovered from a house rented by Lewthwaite
and seen by The Telegraph shows Wahid on a swing with Lewthwaite’s third
child. The identity of the father of the third child, a son born in 2009, is
not known.

The photograph of Lewthwaite and Wahid released yesterday is believed to have
been taken in Mombasa, where the pair lived together in a rented house. It
was one of a number of images showing Lewthwaite in relaxed family poses
with her children.

The apparently normal family pictures were saved alongside a poem she wrote in
praise of the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, a 34-line ‘Ode to Osama’.

Lewthwaite had earlier lived in South Africa, which she is thought to have
first entered in July 2008. She travelled in and out of the country on
several occasions.

Credit records show that Lewthwaite resided in the Mayfair area of
Johannesburg, which is home to large Indian and African Muslim populations,
with numerous mosques. She kept a post office box in nearby Brixton, and
later leased property in the suburb of Bromhof across town, according to
credit documents linked to the identity number listed on the fraudulent
passport.

Naledi Pandor, the South African home affairs minister, said that the last
recorded use of the passport was in February 2011, before it was cancelled
and added to a “stop list”.

Having left South Africa she crossed through Tanzania, and was spotted at the
Tanzanian-Kenyan border before disappearing again.

The former army officer’s blog post, whose authenticity could not immediately
be verified, goes on to claim that Kenyan intelligence sources were
searching for Wahid, and that he had travelled recently to Europe.

Officials have suggested he used the alias Mark Costa, a name said to be that
of a Mozambican passport-holder who was connected to one of the three houses
that Lewthwaite rented in Mombasa during 2011.

Little is known about his whereabouts after December 2011, when he is believed
to have fled to Somalia with Lewthwaite and their children after Kenyan
police arrested another associate, Jermaine Grant, from east London.

Although the blog post author claims to have helped the Westgate attackers buy
vehicles and rent a flat near the shopping centre, he does not link Wahid to
the terrorist siege there.

Lethwaite was initially thought to be involved in the Westgate shopping centre
attacks. But Kenyan police are yet to establish any proof of her
participation.