Morning Security Brief: Yemen and Somalia, Meth Report, Border Shooting, DHS Surveillance Camera, & For Sale: Blackwater

♦ Recent examples of homegrown terrorism arrests in the United States and Yemen suggest how ungoverned areas of Yemen and Somalia have become a hotbed of al Qaeda-inspired jihadist activity. 'US officials on Monday confirmed the arrest of a dozen Americans in Yemen. Last week Yemeni officials reported the arrests of foreigners as part of a Yemeni roundup of individuals suspected of taking part in a surge of Al Qaeda planning and organizational activity in the desert country over recent months," reports The Christian Science Monitor. "Those arrests, which come as the US provides Yemen with millions of dollars in counterterrorist assistance, follow the indictment June 3 of a Texas man the FBI believes was trying to deliver money and materials to the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The FBI says the Texas man, Barry Bujol Jr., had been under investigation since 2008, over which time he had communicated by e-mail with the American-born radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki seeking advice on how to contribute to 'jihad.'" Experts within the story, however, warn that American counterterrorism assistance will be used by Yemen to kill its own rebels rather than al Qaeda militants.

♦ The White House has delayed the release of a Department of Justice report that describes Mexico's increasing production of methamphetamine for the U.S. market so as not to further erode relations. "The report, obtained by The New York Times, is called the 2010 National Methamphetamine Threat Assessment by the National Drug Intelligence Center of the Justice Department," reports The Times. "It portrays drug cartels as easily able to circumvent the Mexican government’s restrictions on the importing of chemicals used to manufacture meth, which has reached its highest purity and lowest price in the United States since 2005."

♦ And the tensions are getting more complicated. A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent shot and killed a rock-throwing Mexican teenager on Monday night along the U.S.-Mexican border.The Mexican government is calling for an investigation of the incident. Mexico "reiterates that the use of firearms to repel a rock attack represents a disproportionate use of force, particularly coming from authorities who receive specialized training on the matter," the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday in a news release, according to CNN.com. CBP Spokesman Mark Qualia said rock-throwing incidents can be  violent assaults. "They're not chunking pebbles," he said.

♦ Meet the Department of Homeland Security's surveillance camera system of the future: the Imaging System for Immersive Surveillance (ISIS). The system can take video from many different cameras and stitch them together without losing clarity. "The interface allows maintenance of the full field of view, while magnifying a focal point of choice at the same time," according to TG Daily. "One app can define an 'exclusion zone', for which ISIS provides an alert the moment it's breached. Another lets the operator pick a target — a person, a package, or a pickup truck — and the detailed viewing window will tag it and follow it, automatically panning and tilting as needed."

♦ The bad press has taken it's toll. Erik Prince, the controversial founder of the private military firm Blackwater, now Xe, has put the company up for sale.