Children of ISIS, Taken In by Russia

including Britain, have taken a softer approach to repatriating most of the women and the estimated 1,000 children of militants from the European Union who fought in Syria. France has placed most of the 66 minors who have returned so far in foster or adoptive homes. Some have joined relatives. A few older ones, who were combatants, have been incarcerated.

Analysts estimate that as many as 5,000 family members of foreign terrorist recruits are now marooned in camps and orphanages in Iraq and Syria. Russia and Georgia are in the forefront of countries helping family members to return, said Liesbeth van der Heide, an author of a study published last summer in The Hague.

As Mr. Sabsabi acknowledged, many, if not most, of the returning children were exposed to unspeakable acts of macabre violence, including roles in execution videos. Many children were desensitized to violence through ceaseless indoctrination, paramilitary training and participation in various other crimes.

Germany’s domestic intelligence chief, Hans- Georg Maassen, said, “we have to consider that these children could be living time bombs.”

That is not an easy view to take of Bilal, 4, a little boy with a mop of hair who was returned to Russia last summer.

He makes car noises and pushes a toy around the kitchen table in his grandmother’s apartment in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya. He says little about his time in Iraq, says his grandmother, Rosa Murtazayeva, but it is obvious he remains touchingly attached to his father, Hasan.

With American- backed forces closing in, father and son survived like hunted animals in basements in Mosul. Bilal recalls little but the boiled potatoes they survived on. “I was with papa,” Bilal said. “There were no other boys.”

After they were captured, his father vanished into Iraqi prisons. Emaciated and filthy when he was found, Bilal is now outwardly fine. Ms. Murtazayeva said he has many friends.

But some children remain grimly silent, despite therapy.

Hadizha, 8, was found in a Mosul street. Her grandmother identified her from a photograph posted by an aid group. She was lying in a gutter, her arm and chin bandaged from burns.

What became of her mother, two brothers and a sister is unclear, said the grandmother, Zura, identified only by her first name to protect the child’s privacy. She cares for Hadizha in a small village in Chechnya.

“I gently asked her, ‘ What happened?’ but she doesn’t want to say anything,” Zura said. “I want to hope they are alive, to latch onto something. But she is certain. She says they were shot, but that she waved her hands and said in Arabic, ‘Don’t shoot,’ and saved herself in that way.”

Hadizha spends her days curled up on a couch, her eyes distant and angry, watching television. “She doesn’t need anything else,” her grandmother said. “She is silent.”

Others have fared better. Adlan, 9, left for Syria with his family but returned alone, delivered by Russians working with the repatriation program.

In the Islamic State, he said, he attended school, rode bikes and played tag with other Russian-speaking children. During the Mosul battle, something exploded in his house, he said, and his family was killed. “He said he saw his mother and brother and sisters, and they were sleeping,” said his Chechen grandfather, Eli, who also gave only his first name.

Asked by a psychologist to draw a picture, Adlan drew a house and flowers, deemed a good sign. Eli said: “I think it will pass. He is still young and has a child’s memory.”

Chechen grandparents provide comfort for young victims of war.