New York: Concern grew over the fate of Jill Carroll, a US journalist abducted in Iraq after her captors threatened to kill her unless the US freed all female prisoners in Iraq within 72 hours.
Civil rights groups have urged the Iraqi group holding American journalist to release her.
Carrol was kidnapped in Baghdad on Tuesday and her interpreter was killed.
The deadline set by the group expires on tonight.
A delegation from the Council of American Islamic relations is travelling to Iraq to try and negotiate her release.
Appeals for Carroll’s release came from her family, the Christian Science Monitor newspaper for which she was working, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations and media watchdog groups.
US state department spokesman Sean McCormack said President George W Bush's administration was continuing to 'make every effort' to secure her freedom.
On Tuesday, the Qatar-based Arabic television station Al-Jazeera showed a videotape of Carroll taken by her kidnappers, who issued their execution ultimatum.
Carroll, wearing a grey sweatshirt with her long brown hair loose, was shown alone in the video and speaking, but there was no sound. It was the first time she had been seen since her disappearance.
In Iraq, a justice ministry official said Wednesday that six Iraqi women detainees were to be freed in the coming days. US forces had earlier said they were holding a total of eight Iraqi women because they presented 'an imperative threat' to the security of Iraq.
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