An Afghan women's rights activist might have been tricked into going to a safe house and then found dead. Others hoping to escape or live freely in the country worry they could be next

• Frozan Safi, a well-known women's rights defender, was found dead this month in Mazar-e Sharif, a city in northern Afghanistan.
• A widely-seen security warning that spread over messaging apps was probably a hoax but contributed to the unease.

In early November, Frozan Safi, a well-known activist and economics lecturer, and three other people were found dead in Mazar-e-Sharif, one of Afghanistan's biggest cities. According to one report, Safi, who was 29, might have been tricked into thinking she was going to a safe house as she waited for her asylum application to be approved.

At around the same time, a message labeled "Important security alert" was spreading on WhatsApp among the city's English speakers. It claimed that a "death squad is posing as a Western human rights and rescue organization" and, using English, "summoning people in hiding to meet then executing them." The message linked this supposed squad to the killings in Mazar.

The message was very likely a hoax, but it seemed to confirm people's worst fears.

Whatever the source, the warning text fed into a sense of acute unease in Mazar, which has served as one of the hubs for people looking to leave the country since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan on Aug. 15. Multiple evacuation flights have left from the city's airport, bringing Afghan journalists, military interpreters, and others here from the capital, Kabul, and other provinces.

Journalists, lawyers, NGO and security workers, and English speakers say there's a sense that danger could come from anywhere – mafia groups, a rogue Taliban fighter, or a common criminal who feels emboldened to act out on personal grudge – and it's not clear where to turn for help.

"Mazar is a small place. It doesn't take a lot of time for people to figure out who you are, what you do," said Qudsia Shojazada, a local activist and journalist who helped organize women's protests during the first weeks of Taliban rule.

'You worked with the foreigners to split up families'

The Taliban reached Mazar, one of Afghanistan's economic and cultural hubs, on Aug. 13. Two days later, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, and, two weeks after that, the US military completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan and ended its 20-year war.

Since then, Zainab, a Mazar resident in her 20s, has been extra cautious when she goes out in the city. Before leaving the house, she makes sure to put on her sunglasses, cover as much of her body as she can, and wear minimal makeup – all to avoid being recognized.

Though many of the other women and girls who venture out into the city dress largely as they used to before the Taliban takeover, Zainab says the years she spent working with lawyers on family law cases make her a target. (Insider is using a pseudonym.)

Zainab was among those who saw the frightening message. Regardless of its source, things like that have increased her sense of unease.

"There are a lot of people with resentment and grudges against us," she said. "Eventually they will find out that I worked on cases involving domestic abuse and divorce. What if they say to me, 'You were part of the problem, you worked with the foreigners to split up families.'"

Zainab says both men and women who had worked with legal, human rights and Western-funded agencies are going to great lengths to remain "as anonymous as possible" in the city.

"I saw one female lawyer who had worked on divorce cases, you could tell she was trying so hard to change her appearance," Zainab said.

"People who were active in society don't feel safe and comfortable anymore."

A rare, confirmed killing

In Mazar, as in other Afghan cities, there have been multiple reports of abuse and intimidation of journalists, protesters, and professionals linked to US forces by the Taliban's foot soldiers.

A former resident of Mazar, who has since relocated to Canada and spoke to Insider on condition of anonymity, has heard from relatives and friends that targeted killings in Mazar have increased over the last three weeks.

But with the country's once-vibrant media largely extinguished, it's difficult to know what's really happening in the country, and such rumors are difficult to confirm.

Local media has struggled under the Taliban's intimidation and a lack of funding since, like many Afghan institutions, it was heavily reliant on financial support from the West. The country is also facing a cash crunch since the US and international bodies like the World Bank and the IMF cut off access to $9.5 billion in assets and loans.

In a statement issued last month, the Afghan Journalists Safety Committee (AJSC) said that 70 percent of media outlets across the country have closed. "Media reporting quality has reached to its lowest level in the last 20 years," it said.

The murder of Safi and the three others – they have still not been publicly identified – was the rare case that the Taliban confirmed, and with that came a wave of press attention.

In a video statement posted online, a spokesman for the Taliban's Ministry of Interior, Qari Saeed Khosti, said the victims had been "invited to the house" by the alleged killers. He didn't name the assailants, but said they had been detained.

Zabihullah Noorani, the Head of the Taliban's Cultural Commission in Balkh province, said in an interview that the killings were the result of a "personal issue" and had nothing to do with politics.

Addressing more general security fears, the Taliban's Supreme Leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, said in a statement issued last week that there may be "unknown" entities among their ranks who are "working against the will of the government," and that these individuals will be punished.

'Farming onions in hiding'

On the streets of Mazar, the Taliban are much less visible compared to Kabul and Jalalabad, another major city. But their presence is felt.

Male shopkeepers, students, and taxi drivers in the city told Insider they feel comfortable in the city and that petty crime has come to a near halt in Mazar. But those who were involved in social and political matters do not share that same sense of ease.

"The day after the Taliban took Mazar, we went to the office and turned in whatever was still in our possession," said a former security worker in Mazar, who described himself as a desk worker who was mostly "behind a computer" and had little direct involvement in operations.

His attempt to appease the group was of little use, even though Taliban officials declared a general amnesty when they took over the country, He said he still receives calls from the Taliban saying he has yet to turn over weapons and vehicles belonging to the government, a claim he denies.

Patricia Gossman, Associate Asia Director for Human Rights Watch, said the security worker's case is in line with other accounts she's heard from the provinces of Helmand, Kandahar, Kunduz, Paktia, Nangarhar, and Ghazni. Gossman said HRW is still awaiting the Taliban's response to the cases the rights group has documented.

Fearing abuse and retaliation, the 36-year-old has since left the city and moved to his family's home in a district more than 40 kilometers away. He says he feels robbed of everything he worked for.

"I went to college and earned a degree and now I'm just farming potatoes and onions in hiding," he said.

Too scared to speak up

In the immediate aftermath of the Taliban taking power, women-led protests were held in Mazar and other major cities. But by September, they had largely stopped.

Shojazada, the local activist who helped organize the demonstrations in Mazar, said she has been in hiding ever since and has changed where she lives several times.

She said that several fellow activists have been detained simply for their previous work, and she has received reports of targeted killings and disappearances in the city. The Taliban's intelligence in Mazar is "very powerful," she said.

Shojazada knows this even from the experience of her own family.

Over the summer, one of Shojazada's brothers joined the government-sponsored People's Uprising movement to fight off the Taliban's fast-moving advances. He was detained shortly after the Taliban took power despite the promised amnesty. As she relays the story, Shojazada is cautious not to reveal too much for fear of inspiring further retaliation against their family.

A short while later, when a friend of hers was arrested and held for 20 days after taking part in a protest in September, Shojazada said the family resisted help to avoid angering the Taliban.

"They didn't want anyone to know that their son had been arrested," Shojazada told Insider. "We had to work so hard to gain their trust just so we could try and help them however we could."

"People in Mazar are terrified to speak up," she said.