Details of how an Australian-Afghan man was killed by the Taliban will take some time to emerge, the federal government says.
Sayed Habib Musawi, 56, was reportedly tortured and murdered while travelling to the Afghan capital of Kabul last week on a trip to visit relatives.
Local authorities believe he was targeted because of his Australian citizenship.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says she is awaiting official confirmation of Mr Musawi's death but any information would be substantially delayed because it occurred in a Taliban-held area.
"It is going to be difficult for us to get information for some time," she told reporters in Melbourne on Monday.
Mr Musawi came to Australia as a refugee by boat in 2000 and lived in western Sydney.
The dual citizen's family are shocked and devastated and have called for government help.
They want to know how the Taliban knew of their father's movements, believing he was set up.
His daughter, Kubra Musawi, said, somehow, the Taliban found out her father was in the country and captured him while he was riding a bus to the capital Kabul.
"When they got him, they said, 'Ah, we got a report about you, saying that you live in Australia and you have a house in Kabul and you have a house in Australia, you came from Australia, and you're a Shia," she told SBS.
Listen: Greg Dyett speaks with daughter Kubra Musawi
Kubra Musawi's mother and her brother Nemat flew to Afghanistan last Wednesday after learning of the alleged murder.
Sayed Balkhi runs a business in Melbourne selling imported rugs, carpet and furniture, and employed Nemat Musawi as a salesman. He told SBS the whole family is looking for answers.
"They don't know exactly what has happened, but they're all devastated and they're still shocked why it has happened. But that's what they think, that it's because he's an Australian. He was an Australian and could have been reported to the Taliban that he's Australian, and that was probably the reason. That's what they think as well."
Kubra Musawi said her father's killers left a chilling message written on her father's body.
"In his arm, they wrote that, if you work as an army (soldier) for the government, this will happen to you. They wrote in Pashto."
She told SBS her father was not working for anyone in Afghanistan, hopes her relatives in Afghanistan will not also be targeted.
"My hope will be that my brother's family is safe, but how can they be safe? That's the place where my dad has been killed. It's just too hard for me to describe it. And my brother's in Indonesia. He's feeling really bad because his family is there. He's thinking, 'If this happened to my dad, how will they be good to my family?' Of course, they're not going to be nice to the family. They will kill maybe the family. You never know."
The Australian government's Smartraveller website continues to advise that Afghanistan remains a Do Not Travel destination.
Mr Musawi had been in Afghanistan since May, waiting for safe passage from Kabul to Jaghori to visit relatives, his family said.
Consular officials in Kabul are seeking to confirm the reports and to provide assistance to the Musawi family, who are travelling to Afghanistan for his funeral in Jaghori, where he was buried.
