Former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg is one of four people who have been arrested on suspicion of terrorism offences linked to the Syria conflict.
British police confirmed Begg (45) was among three men and a woman from the West Midlands held on Tuesday morning. Mr. Begg is suspected of attending a terrorist training camp and facilitating terrorism overseas.
A 36-year-old man, a woman aged 44 and her 20-year-old son were also held on suspicion of facilitating terrorism overseas. Vehicles and electronic equipment were being removed from the suspects' homes in Hall Green, Shirley and Sparkhill.
Officers from the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU) were carrying out searches at the three addresses. The four suspects are being held at a police station in the West Midlands area.
A West Midlands Police spokeswoman said "We can confirm that Moazzam Begg was arrested this morning. We are confirming this name as a result of the anticipated high public interest to accredited media".
She added naming Mr. Begg does "not imply any guilt".
Mr Begg was detained at Guantanamo by the US government for nearly three years after being arrested in Pakistan in February 2002. He was held on suspicion of being a member of al-Qaeda before being released without charge in January 2005.
He was allowed to return to the UK where he was arrested by police before being released without charge.
Mr. Begg is now a director of Cage - which campaigns "against the War on Terror" - and has always maintained that he has never been involved in any kind of terrorist activity.
The arrests come after unrelated video and pictures emerged earlier this month of a man suspected of being Britain's first suicide bomber in Syria.
Adbul Waheed Majeed allegedly drove a bomb into a jail in Aleppo and detonated a bomb on February 6th. The family of the 41-year-old, from Crawley, West Sussex, said they believed he was in Syria for humanitarian purposes.
He is among an estimated 20 Britons who are believed to have been killed in the Syrian conflict.
