Morning Security Brief: Canadian Jihadists, Radiation Detection Machines, Texas Capitol Security, Baghdad Prison Break, & More

♦ According to the Asia Times Online, al Qaeda is training a group of Canadian jihadists to carry out attacks against their home country. "Well-placed Taliban sources say that a group of Canadian militants is receiving jihadi training in al-Qaeda camps in North Waziristan for terror attacks in Canada, whose troops are a part of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan," reports Syed Saleem Shahzad and Tahir Ali. "Arif Wazir, a local militant of Darpakhel in North Waziristan told Asia Times Online, 'In the first stage of their journey, the Canadians went to Afghanistan in February 2010; there were 12 of them. After nine months, al-Qaeda's leaders decided to send them to North Waziristan and they reached Darpakhel in November last year.'"

♦ Once again, the Department of Homeland Security's Domestic Nuclear Detection Office has been criticized for not properly testing next-generation radiation detection machines. "As it pushed to deploy cutting-edge technology in recent years...DNDO...conducted poorly designed performance tests that undermined officials' ability to 'draw reliable conclusions' about whether the costly new equipment would work as billed," according to The Washington Post's summary of a National Academy of Sciences report. "DNDO officials also presented the test results 'in ways that are incorrect and potentially misleading,' the report said. Those conclusions come more than two years after Congress asked the academy to assess a third round of DNDO testing and evaluation of the machines, called Advanced Spectroscopic Portal machines, or ASPs."

♦ Ross Ramsey, the managing editor of the Texas Tribune, gives a rundown of security measures, some contradictory, that make it harder to move around the Texas statehouse. "The driveways around the Capitol either have bollards (stout mechanical posts that pop out of the ground to stop any oncoming vehicles) or live guards, or both, to prevent the public from getting too close, too fast," he writes in The New York Times. "There are metal detectors and X-ray machines at each door. You can get the full airport experience without buying a ticket or packing. Of course, this being Texas, if you present a concealed-handgun license, you can come into the Capitol with or without your weapon and skip security entirely."

♦ Twelve al Qaeda-linked militants broke out of an Iraqi prison wearing police uniforms this morning. "The 12 suspects were awaiting trial when they obtained the police uniforms and walked out of the small, temporary detention centre in one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces before dawn in the southern port city of Basra, said three Iraqi security officials....," reports the Associated Press. "The 12 were the only detainees held at the palace's makeshift jail. Intelligence officers had recently finished an investigation into their suspected ties to the Islamic State of Iraq, which is linked to al-Qaida. It's not clear how the detainees got the police uniforms. One intelligence official said authorities were looking into whether they had inside help from guards."

♦ Security guards at financial firms in Jersey City, New Jersey, are fighting for better pay and health benefits. Service Employees International Union local official Kevin Brown"said security guards working in Jersey City make between $10 and $12 per hour, and have 'no access to quality, affordable health care.' More than 4,000 of them use New Jersey Family Care, the state's health-insurance program for low-income families....," reports The Jersey Journal. "The union held the rally not to protest a specific company, but to call attention to how little security firms in general pay their workers, Brown said."