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Amazon's AWS Unable to Restore Services in UAE, Bahrain Zones Six Months After Drone Strikes

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Amazon's AWS Unable to Restore Services in UAE, Bahrain Zones Six Months After Drone Strikes

Amazon.com's (AMZN) Amazon Web Services said it could not restore access to cloud-computing infrastructure in certain zones in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain more than six months after drone strikes hit the facilities during the early days of the US-Iran conflict.

Damage at several facilities in Bahrain surpassed built-in resilience thresholds, according to an update Tuesday on AWS' health dashboard.

"The damage to our infrastructure spanned multiple availability zones and exceeded what our regional and multi-(availability zones) services are designed to withstand," AWS said."After a thorough assessment, we have determined that we are unable to restore access to the resources and data hosted exclusively in this region."

In a separate update, the company said it is still working to restore two affected data-hosting zones in the UAE and was unable to retrieve resources and data stored in a separate zone.

Drone strikes directly hit two data centers in the UAE in March, while a strike near the company's facilities in Bahrain damaged its infrastructure, AWS added. The strikes resulted in structural damage, disrupted power delivery and led to water damage from fire suppression activities.

The cloud-computing company said it will provide further updates on the UAE facilities "in the coming months" and on the Bahrain region in early 2027.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps took responsibility for the attacks, citing Amazon's alleged military support for the US as its reason for the strike on Bahrain infrastructure, according to a CNBC report.

The attacks raise concerns regarding the security of future data center development in the region. In May 2025, G42, OpenAI, Oracle (ORCL), Nvidia (NVDA), SoftBank Group and Cisco (CSCO) agreed to build Stargate UAE, a 5-gigawatt AI campus spanning 10 square miles in Abu Dhabi.

The UAE is reviewing options to disperse the facilities and make them more secure by building them underground with blast-resistant concrete as well as drone and missile interceptors, Reuters reported last week, citing people familiar with the matter.

In late July, Amazon reported second-quarter results ahead of Wall Street's views amid cloud-computing business strength and lifted its capital expenditure guidance.

Amazon shares were down 0.5% in Wednesday trading and have gained 7% this year.

Price: $246.97, Change: $-1.45, Percent Change: -0.59%

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