Steven Nabil, an Iraqi-American freelance journalist, has told the Daily Telegraph that he and his wife could not sleep last night after coming face-to-face with one of the gunman, reports Josie Ensor in Istanbul.

"The screams of the victims and the blood everywhere didn't allow us to sleep. My wife kept having nightmares," he said. "We had been just feet away from him."

Mr Nabih had been travelling home to New York from their honeymoon in Turkey. His wife had been downstairs at Cafe Nero, while he had been on the third floor trying to find some food.

When he heard the gunfire he instinctively ran to protect his wife. She had been injured in the shooting and he grabbed her and pulled her into a nearby hair salon, where they hid in the cupboard.

"He was shooting for 10-15 minutes before he exploded the bomb," he said. "It felt so long, I wasn't sure we'd get out alive."

In the closet, he said they felt like "sitting ducks": "I was begging my wife to keep calm because the noise might draw any attacker.

"I looked around desperately for anything sharp to protect her if they opened the door and took hostages. I thought about using boiling tea water as a weapon as to burn the attacker if he found us in the closet so my wife can run while i would distract and attack.

"It was the longest 45 minutes ever," he said.

The couple are now waiting in a hotel in Istanbul until they can find a seat on a flight back home to New York. "We just want to leave here now," he said.