Earlier this year, Fayil enrolled in the Na'aleh program, run by the Jewish Agency for Israel for youngsters who want to graduate from high school in Israel. But instead of leaving this summer for Israel, he was abducted May 12 in the city of Makhachkala in the Caucasus Mountains.

After being kept for 26 days in the region of Dagestan, he was taken across the border to Chechnya and held in the basement of a house.

Two months later, he was joined by the three soldiers.

After the ransom demanded for the prisoners went unpaid, the Chechen kidnappers threatened to pass the captives on to local Muslim extremists, who "would treat them far worse."