KABUL, Afghanistan -- The former director's desk was empty of clutter, the bowl of nuts and raisins for visitors untouched. Down the hall, the dazed staff went through the motions of finishing year-end reports. The newly named director sagged sadly in an armchair, reluctant to sit in his old friend's place. Finally he straightened, struggling for composure.
"This was not a simple crime," Naim Azghary said. "They were waiting at the speed bump down the block from his house. They shot his driver, then they opened the other door and shot Mr. Rasheed, 10 or 12 times. Then they were gone. Nobody knows who planned this terror, nobody knows why."
He shook his head. "I am still in shock," he said. "We all are. We never thought this could happen. Why would anyone want to kill him?"
The unclaimed Dec. 23 assassination of Yousuf Rasheed, 45, the executive director of the nonprofit Free and Fair Election Forum of Afghanistan, was among at least two dozen targeted killings of Afghan journalists, civic activists, religious scholars and government employees in recent months.
On Saturday, Afghan authorities announced that they had caught two Taliban members who confessed to killing Rasheed with four accomplices, after disguising themselves as students.
"The Taliban's conscience, if they have one, must tremble and rot from the bloodshed of activists," said First Vice President Amrullah Saleh, a former national intelligence chief, who made the announcement.
But the insurgents, who resumed peace talks with Afghan leaders in Qatar last week, have repeatedly denied any connection with the recent individual slayings. Some victims were ambushed and shot, others blown up by bombs affixed to their vehicles.
Until now, no cases had been reported solved and no official tally of the toll has been released. Meanwhile, the specter of a silent, invisible threat has created wider fears and raised speculation about an array of possible origins and motives, from rogue security units to rival Islamic extremists to copycat killers with personal or political vendettas.
Rasheed's murder has seemed incomprehensible to those who knew him as a quiet, methodical professional, or looked up to him as a role model. It has reverberated far beyond the obscure office where he organized youthful poll-watchers on national election days, pored over sheaves of precinct results and prepared reports of both fraud complaints and Taliban threats.
Across the informal but closely connected network of public interest and pro-democracy advocates in the Afghan capital, his killing has cast a pall of paralyzing doubt and fear. Most members are young, educated men and women who grew up during the country's fledgling experiment in post-Taliban democracy, then took various paths to promote and defend it.
"Yousuf Rasheed was my friend and my hero. Since he was killed, all our activity has stopped," said Khalil Raufi, 30, who heads a consortium of groups called the Civil Society and Human Rights Activists Network. He said many of its members are now turning down TV interviews, working mostly from home and meeting only via Zoom.
Raufi and several associates, who agreed to meet with a Washington Post reporter in a fortified hotel, said they had no protection of any kind and no means to afford the tinted-glass SUVs and armed guards that powerful politicians and business owners use. They complained that police and government officials had done little to reassure the community or provide concrete protection after the targeted killings started.
"The fear stays in my head all the time now," said Mobeen Aimac, 26, who was shot and wounded two years ago by an unknown assailant while researching parliamentary elections. "Whenever I am outside, I look around and behind me constantly."
Since the rash of targeted killings started, the Afghan government has come under intense public pressure to respond. It has doubled the number of police patrolling Kabul streets and this week announced it will install security cameras throughout the capital.