For the second time in just over a year, a Birmingham community woke up to terror on its doorstep. Neil Connor was on the streets of Alum Rock to assess the reaction.

It was a terror alert on a global scale, which could well have had its roots in inner city Birmingham.

Belcher's Lane, hemmed in between the predominantly Asian areas of Alum Rock and Bordesley Green, was coming to terms with its new-found notoriety yesterday.

It was difficult for residents to understand how their neighbours could be linked to a terrorist atrocity on an "unimaginable scale". And it was similar emotions to those felt by the community of nearby Hay Mills, when the first of the four failed London suicide bombers was arrested there in July last year.

But after the initial shock had sunk in that terror police had raided one of their neighbours' homes, the residents attempted to put the pieces together.

The shop that was raided looked anonymous, a converted terrace house set in a largely typical Birmingham road.

Two business signs adorned the front of the building. Rapide Security and Alarms Systems had apparently been put up about five or six years ago and ACS Management Group, was only erected in the last six weeks.

A statement from ACS released last night said it was a new company which had just started to lease the property from a landlord.

Behind a large metal gate at the side of the building was a number of sheds and garages. There was plenty of space not on view to the media pack who had camped outside the property.

It was at the back of the house, at about 3.30am, that neighbours witnessed a group of men being apprehended by about 20 officers.

Police had apparently arrived in a van, before two marked vehicles pulled up outside the house later in the morning.

"I heard a noise outside and then my dog started barking, and it wouldn't stop for a while," said one neighbour, who did not want to be named.

"I didn't think it was a police raid. It must have been very quiet."

Officers were focusing much of their attention on the rear of the property before lunchtime yesterday, going through the garages that were hemmed in by the row of terraces on Belcher's Lane and Essendon Road.

According to other neighbours, this storage space was used on regular occasions by a group of Asian men.

The men would park a lorry on the road in front of the houses next to the shop. From there they would bring in boxes of cakes, neighbours said.

One man who witnessed the frequent arrival of lorries said: "There were a number of smartly dressed Asian and Somalian men who seemed to come and go at the property.

"I know everybody round here and the people who were visiting that address were not from round here, some of them had beards, and they often had London accents."

Another local resident said that on one occasion he approached the lorry driver as he could not get his car around the vehicle as the road is narrow.

He said the driver ignored him, before a Somalian-looking man got out of the passenger seat.

"He told me to mind my own business in no uncertain terms," said the resident.

Another 60-year old neighbour added: "The two Asian men who lived there had been there for years but kept themselves to themselves.

Residents said they were suspicious of activities at the property, as police had visited it last year on several occasions.