Berkley man at Istanbul airport during attack shares his story

A Berkley man is at the Istanbul airport and heard the explosion and gunfire.

An attack by suicide bombers have left 36 dead and 147 injured. Turkey's prime minister says three bombers have died in the attack at Istanbul's Ataturk airport.

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim says that so far all indications point to the Islamic State group being behind the attack. He says the attackers arrived at the airport in a taxi and blew themselves up after opening fire.

John Gamash is a military contractor heading back to Afghanistan after being home on leave. He heard an explosion and gunfire, and when he was finally able to leave for a hotel - he saw carnage.

"There must have been a running gunfight going on over there between the two terminals," Gamash said. "Because everything in between was all shot up. The really thick tempered glass that they use in airports over here, a lot of that wasn't broken - but boy was it chipped up with bullet holes."

He also talked about the bombs he heard that went off.

"There was a lot of explosions, it had the sound of a hand grenade," he said. "It was very close, I definitely felt and heard the concussion.

"Shortly after that, there were a couple of bursts of automatic gunfire."

A stoppage of flights to and from the United States and Istanbul Ataturk Airport lasted several hours but has been lifted.