At around 10:30 p.m. local time, gunmen opened fired and detonated explosives at the international terminal inside Instanbul Ataturk Airport.
Steven Nabil, an Iraqi-American journalist (per his Twitter bio) was heading home to New York after his honeymooon, when he and his wife nearly got caught in the crossfire.
Nabil’s play-by-play account of how they escaped is nothing short of miraculous.
“We just left the aiport. My wife was injured during the attack,” he tweeted.
“We were face to face with the attacker while he sprayed I ran back got my wife pulled her to store broke in and waited in terror while he was shooting outside the store.we barely made it.
“My wife was sitting at nero cafe while i went 3rd floor to get food from sabbaro.
“Heard shots ran fast toward her.
“people Came down the stairs to see the court empty and the terrorist firing toward us.
“carried her arm and ran around sitting ducks we then took cover in a closet inside a hair salon.
“The 45 minutes we were sitting ducks waiting to find out who will open the door.”
The death toll is still being counted as of press time, but NBC News reported at 7:50 p.m. ET 35 dead and “over a hundred” injured.
One witness told NBC that he spotted three suicide bombers. Another said he heard blasts in a parking lot, where an attacker was seen shooting an AK-47 before blowing himself up.
Then, yet another blew himself up in arrivals, while one more suspect was seen by police who then yelled “suicide bomber.”
He then detonated his explosives.
Details on the attack are still coming in, and one witness told Voices of America what he saw.
“There were two small explosions and then a large one. People scattered everywhere,” he explained.
“They didn’t know where to go. We were waiting for my sister, but couldn’t find her. We’re [still] waiting.”