AWS data centers hit by drones as Middle East war disrupts cloud services
In a dramatic escalation of the ongoing U.S.-Israel-Iran war, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has confirmed that its data centers in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain were struck by drone attacks, resulting in fires, infrastructure damage and major disruptions to cloud computing services across the region. The incidents mark one of the first known instances where critical global tech infrastructure has been directly affected by kinetic military strikes amid the Middle East conflict.
According to AWS service status updates and multiple news reports, unidentified drones — widely believed to be part of an Iranian retaliatory campaign — hit two AWS data centers in the UAE directly, while a nearby strike damaged a facility in Bahrain. The attacks appear to have occurred on March 1, 2026, coinciding with a broader wave of Iranian drone and missile strikes across Gulf states in response to recent U.S. and Israeli military actions in Iran.
In one of the UAE facilities, the impact of the strike sparked sparks and a fire, prompting local emergency services to cut power to the building as crews worked to extinguish the blaze and prevent further damage. The facility’s power and cooling systems — essential for maintaining the health of servers and data storage equipment — were disrupted, forcing AWS to temporarily take portions of its cloud infrastructure offline.
AWS services, including core cloud offerings such as EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud), S3 (Simple Storage Service) and database functions, experienced outages or degraded performance as a result of the strikes. Customers in both the UAE and Bahrain reported disruptions to web applications, banking systems, and other services that rely on AWS infrastructure to operate.
In addition to the direct hits in the UAE, a drone strike close to the AWS facility in Bahrain caused structural and electrical damage that affected connectivity and cloud services in the country. Although not as severe as the direct strikes in the UAE, the Bahrain impact contributed to widespread regional cloud outages and underscored how military conflict can ripple through critical computing infrastructure.
“Objects struck the data centers, creating sparks and fire at the site,” an AWS status update read, adding that the company expected restoration of full service to take several hours or more. Clients were advised to move workloads to other regions or unaffected availability zones to maintain continuity while repair efforts were underway.
The disruptions arrive amid a volatile period in the region, with Iranian forces launching drones and missiles at several Gulf states following U.S. and Israeli strikes that reportedly killed key Iranian leaders. Gulf countries, including the UAE and Saudi Arabia, have faced multiple aerial attacks, prompting emergency responses and international condemnation.
In the UAE, local authorities and emergency services have been stretched as they respond not only to the data center fire but also to other incidents across the country linked to the conflict. The damage to Amazon’s facilities highlights the vulnerability of critical digital infrastructure — from oil refineries to cloud data centers — in a region at the centre of global geopolitical tensions.
Industry analysts say the attack on AWS data centers is unprecedented in many ways, as tech giants have traditionally been perceived as insulated from physical warfare. The strikes raise concerns about the security of expanding cloud infrastructure in politically unstable regions, particularly as companies such as Microsoft and Google invest heavily in data centers across the UAE and Gulf for artificial intelligence and digital services.
Global tech firms had positioned the UAE as a major data hub, leveraging its strategic location, infrastructure and energy resources to host cloud computing facilities serving clients across Europe, Africa and Asia. The attacks now expose a significant risk to digital supply chains, prompting many businesses to consider resilience strategies, such as multi-region backups and disaster recovery planning.
For users dependent on AWS services in the Middle East, the strikes triggered a series of outages affecting websites, applications, and online services for several hours. Financial institutions, logistics companies and even government services that rely on cloud computing experienced intermittent access issues and delays.
In response, AWS urged customers to replicate workloads to geographically separate regions and to follow best practices for business continuity. While core infrastructure outside the region continues to operate normally, the event has served as a stark reminder of how modern warfare can affect not only physical battlegrounds but also digital ecosystems that underpin global commerce and communication.
As hostilities in the Middle East show no signs of abating, the possibility of further disruption to tech infrastructure remains a growing concern for businesses and governments alike. The AWS data centers hit by drones incident underscores how global conflicts can now reach into the cloud — once thought to be remote from traditional battlefields — illustrating the broad and unpredictable impacts of modern geopolitical tensions.
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