'White Widow' Samantha Lewthwaite 'spied on embassies' in South Africa Home Affairs Minister Naledi Pandor said last week that Lewthwaite's last recorded use of the false passport was in February 2011. Later that year it was cancelled and added to a watch list. Mrs Pandor refused to comment on allegations that Lewthwaite is in possession of other South African identity documents. Anneli Botha, a terrorism expert at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, said she believed there was a "tremendous threat brewing" in South Africa, with the country not so much a direct target of Islamist terror groups than a "very active role player." The country has become a convenient hiding place and base for operations, in part due to the availability of passports obtained through corruption or with fraudulent documents, she said. Ms Botha said she believed al-Shabaab would have no compunction about attacking a target in South Africa such as an embassy. "If it is possible for anything good to come out of the Westgate attack, it will be to get South Africa out of its comfort zone, to get our heads out of the sand," Ms Botha said in a briefing from the institute. Mrs Pandor has denied that false South African passports are easily obtained, describing such accusations as "sensationalism" with stories that stretch the truth created "to harm the image of South Africa." She explained that Lewthwaite was issued a South African passport using documents fraudulently obtained through a late-registration-of-birth process, but this loophole is in the process of being closed.