Iran Drone Strikes Leave Amazon Web Services Facilities Offline

The Government of Iran launched retaliatory drone and missile strikes against American data centers in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain following U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran in March. The strikes caused severe infrastructure damage and fires, leaving Amazon Web Services (AWS) facilities mostly offline more than six months later. In Bahrain, the damage spanned multiple availability zones, exceeding the design limits of regional services and rendering the region unavailable by April.

In the United Arab Emirates, two facilities were directly struck, and access remains lost for resources hosted exclusively in the mec1-az2 zone. The disruptions affected over 270 computing services and forced regional banking and fintech platforms offline. AWS is currently assisting customers with migration to other regions and expects to provide further updates for Bahrain in early 2027.

The attacks have stalled a deal between the United Arab Emirates and OpenAI for a planned 5-gigawatt data-center complex, complicating the UAE's goal of becoming a global AI data processing hub. In response, the UAE is considering underground facilities and enhanced drone defenses. Despite these risks and threats from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps against firms like Microsoft, Oracle, Alphabet, and Nvidia, Amazon and Microsoft still intend to launch data centers in Saudi Arabia by the end of 2026.