The father of British journalist Yvonne Ridley expressed his "dread" last night that the Afghan bombing raids would jeopardise her safe release from the country.
Ms Ridley, freed by the Taliban regime yesterday, was due to be taken to the Pakistani border today, where she was to be met by British diplomats. A reporter with the Sunday Express, she was arrested 10 days ago for entering the country illegally.
"She has been released. She is free," the Taliban's information minister, Qudratullah Jamal, said yesterday.
Ms Ridley was driven from the capital Kabul, where she was being questioned, to the eastern city of Jalalabad, two hours from the border.
Her father, Mr Allan Ridley said: "This is the news we have been dreading. We just feel fear, fear for her safety. We had hoped that military activity would not begin until she was safely out of Afghanistan. Now I feel as concerned as I have been in any of the days since she was captured.
"Things are not getting any easier for us; we will just have to see what tomorrow brings."
Ms Ridley (43) was unexpectedly released two days after Tony Blair met Pakistan's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, in Islamabad for talks about the crisis in Afghanistan.
It followed intensive diplomacy by consular staff at the British high commission in Islamabad, the Express's editorial director, Mr Paul Ashford, and Salayha Hussain-Din, an Urdu-speaking lawyer at Express newspapers.
For the past week senior Taliban officials have warned that Ms Ridley had committed a serious crime by crossing the border without a visa and that she would have to face trial.
Journalists have been banned from the country by the Taliban since the US attacks.
"This lady came illegally to Afghanistan. She had no passport. She entered illegally wearing Afghan dress," Mr Jamal said.
Taliban ministers said they were investigating whether she was spying, or was a member of the British special forces.
But it appears that the foreign minister, Mullah Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, stepped in at the last minute to press for her release.
The final order was given by Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban's supreme leader.
There was no word, however, about her two Afghan guides, who were arrested at the same time. They both face a much more serious fate, possibly the death penalty, under the Taliban's interpretation of Islamic law.
Ms Ridley was arrested by Taliban soldiers a few miles inside the country, close to Jalalabad.
She carried no passport and was disguised in a burqa, the a veil which Afghan women must wear.
She was taking photographs in the bazaar when she was arrested. Photographs of living beings are outlawed by the Taliban.
Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban ambassador to Islamabad, said he had met a British diplomat at his home yesterday to discuss the details of Ms Ridley's release.
Last week the British high commissioner in Islamabad, Ms Hilary Synnott, met Mr Zaeef to plead for her release.
"We are still trying to confirm reports of her release," the commission said last night.
Ms Ridley was being held with the eight foreign aid workers on trial in Kabul.
The workers have been detained since August on charges of spreading Christianity and had been seen by their Pakistani lawyer, the Sunday Express said on Saturday.
US President, George W. Bush, had demanded that the Taliban release the aid workers, and hand over Saudi-born Islamic militant Osama bin Laden and his aides.