A man was arrested today under the terrorism act as police swooped on two homes in Birmingham.

The 30-year-old from Sparkhill was taken into custody earlier this morning, by officers from the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit, on suspicion of possessing material likely to be of use to a terrorist and of distributing terrorist publications.

The man’s home address and one other house in Kings Heath were today being searched. Some computer equipment has already been taken away for forensic analysis.

West Midlands Police Counter Terrorism Unit’s head of investigations, Detective Superintendent Kenny Bell, said: “This arrest comes as a result of a long, detailed and ongoing enquiry.

“The operation was carried out by unarmed officers in a way intended to cause the minimum amount of disruption for those in the immediate vicinity.”

The West Midlands has been at the centre of a number of anti-terror investigations.

In 2007, the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit was launched as one of four teams across England and Wales.

In 2008, a man was jailed for life for an al Qaeda plot to kidnap and murder a British Muslim soldier. Parviz Khan, of Birmingham, talked of snatching the victim from the cityÄs Broad Street district and beheading him Älike a pigÄ.

And in December that year, two British Muslims who were convicted of being members al Qaeda and trying to brainwash students at the University of Wolverhampton.