Daily Security Brief: TSA's New Hire?, Iraqi Elections, Thai Security, 5 U.S. Muslims Could Face Pakistani Justice, & More

♦ President Barack Obama today is expected to appoint a former senior Army official with extensive intelligence experience to run the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), reports the Associated Press. The choice of retired Gen. Robert Harding, the AP says, signals the Obama administration's understanding that poor intelligence practices allowed the botched Christmas day attack to occur. One administration official told the news wire that the top post in TSA "is the most important unfilled post in the Obama administration."

♦ Iraqi citizens defied insurgent attacks yesterday and voted in the country's latest round of parliamentary elections, reports The New York Times. "The shrugging response of voters could signal a fundamental weakening of the insurgency’s potency," the Times reports. "At least 38 people were killed in Baghdad. But by day’s end, turnout was higher than expected, and certainly higher than in the last parliamentary election in 2005, marred by a similar level of violence." Gen. Ray Odierno, the top military commander in Iraq, told "Good Morning America" that Iraq's security forces seem on track and so does the United States withdrawal from the country.

♦ The government of Thailand will impose a tough security law to control protesters that call for a House dissolution and snap elections, reports the Bangkok Post. The Internal Security Act, reports Reuters, "allows the country's top security agency, the Internal Security Operations Command, to impose curfews, operate checkpoints and restrict the movement of demonstrators if protests by the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) turn violent."

♦ The five American Muslims from Northern Virginia caught seeking Pakistani jihadist groups could stand trial in Pakistan for their crimes rather than face deportation to the United States, reports the Associated Press. "A senior police officer said soon after the men's arrest that authorities were likely to deport them, but it now looks increasingly like they will face trial in Pakistan on charges that carry a maximum term of life imprisonment," according to the AP. The men's defense attorneys argue the men never sought to attack Pakistan and were headed for Afghanistan.

♦ The Associated Press reports on the strong security presence of Chinese soldiers in Lhasa, formerly the capital city of Tibet and the birthplace of Tibetan Buddhism. "Helmeted paramilitary police stand guard behind spiked barriers at some street corners. Men on rooftops train binoculars on the square and streets in the Barkhor, the heart of the old city that surrounds a holy temple," the news wire reports. The heavy security is ostensibly to keep the calm between Tibetans and Chinese residents after a violent riot among Tibetans broke out two years ago.