‘The blasts kept coming’: ABQ residents recall escaping war zone in Bahrain

Three Albuquerque residents were sightseeing at the Al Fatez Mosque in Manama, Bahrain, late morning on Feb. 28 when they heard an explosion.

As they toured the mosque, Suzanne Horning said she heard a “bam!”

The explosion struck near the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet headquarters less than a mile from where Horning, 83, her friend and neighbor Ned O’Malia, 83, and Horning’s husband John Horning, 84, were.

“That first blast absolutely shook the ground,” John Horning said. “I mean, absolutely shook.”

Suzanne Horning said everyone was calm despite the explosion.

“Not one person screamed or freaked out or anything,” she said. “Everybody looked in different directions and I think we all kind of looked at each other. The (tour) guide said, ‘Why don’t we go inside?’ Now, it was interesting because there was a shelter about a half a block away in the library, but it was closed.”

While the Hornings and O’Malia were sightseeing inside the mosque they were given water and told to stay away from the windows.

“The blasts kept coming,” Suzanne Horning said. “(They weren’t) ‘boom, boom, boom.’ (Instead, they were coming) 10 minutes apart, five minutes apart, 20 minutes apart and so forth.”

As the bombs continued, people’s phones went off “like an Amber Alert,” she said.

Each alert said, “A hazard has occurred,” John Horning said.

“So they were all going off at the same time and that (was) almost as spooky as the bombs,” Suzanne Horning said.

The bombs came from Iran, which attacked Bahrain after the U.S. and Israel began bombing Iran on Feb. 28. That day, U.S. and Israeli forces killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Seven U.S. service members have been killed in the war, while at least 1,230 people have been killed in Iran, hundreds in Lebanon and 12 in Israel, The Associated Press has reported.

National and international news outlets report U.S. forces have hit over 5,000 targets in Iran while the Islamic Republic has attacked at least nine countries, often aiming at U.S. military installations.

“We didn’t know if they were drones flying slowly and we didn’t know if they were missiles,” O’Malia said. “We didn’t know if it was a missile or a drone intercepting and the explosion was way over our heads.”

Inside the mosque, the Hornings and O’Malia peeked out of the windows and saw black plumes of smoke coming from near the 5th Fleet naval base. For the next several hours, they continued hearing the explosions, Suzanne Horning said.

She said everyone was so shocked by what was happening that “we weren’t verbalizing very much at all.”

“We were just kind of sitting there and then our guide said, ‘Oh, I’ve never been through this before,’” she said. “Well, I haven’t either.”

Two days later, on March 2, the Hornings and O’Malia were at a hotel when they heard explosions and saw missiles fly over a mile away, Suzanne Horning said.

“We have to get out of here,” she said.

About 8,000 miles away in Albuquerque, O’Malia’s sister, Missy O’Malia, who was watching the news to keep up with what was happening in the Middle East, tried texting her brother to see if he and the Hornings were OK.

She never heard back.

“We did not have Wi-Fi,” Ned O’Malia said. “My texting wouldn’t work.”

As the silence grew louder on Missy O’Malia’s end, she said she constantly held a rosary hoping for the best.

Back in Bahrain, Suzanne Horning said a couple of people with whom they were traveling tried calling the American embassy, which was closed. 

“The Monday that we were leaving they were sending their people home,” she said. “I mean they have a right to protect their employees there, but when U.S. citizens are told that you can go to your embassy … and the embassy is closed and they’re not answering the phone, you kind of feel, ‘Hey, we’re kind of left out here.’”

It wasn’t until Thursday that the first government-chartered repatriation flights came back from the Middle East as U.S. embassies in the region continued to direct Americans to rely on commercial flights to leave.  As of Tuesday, the State Department said 40,000 American citizens have safely returned.

The Hornings and Ned O’Malia tried to get to Bahrain International Airport but it was closed. They were eventually able to get a ride to Saudi Arabia. While en route, Suzanne Horning said she wore a black scarf over her head “so we didn’t look American.”

They eventually made it to Cairo where they continued their vacation.

“We felt that we all wanted to go on and end on a good note,” Suzanne Horning said.

When the Hornings and O’Malia returned to Albuquerque, she said, “ people were running out to hug us.”

“It was like we came home from the war,” Suzanne Horning said.

Gregory R.C. Hasman is a general assignment reporter and the Road Warrior. He can be reached at ghasman@abqjournal.com or 505-823-3820.