The biographies of the individuals responsible for the beheadings of James Foley and Daniel Pearl are eerily similar.

Foley’s killer, “Jihadi John” — recently revealed to be one Mohammed Emwazi — moved to London when he was young, was raised in a middle-class neighborhood, and attended the University of Westminster. The mastermind behind Pearl’s kidnapping and execution, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, was born and raised in London, grew up in a middle-class family, and attended the London School of Economics (LSE).