Amazon Cloud Facilities in Middle East Knocked Out by Apparent Iranian Drone Strikes

Cloud customers are being urged to migrate their data away from the Middle East. According to Amazon, drone strikes in the Middle East have targeted web infrastructure “directly,” resulting in multiple data centers being taken offline. Yesterday there was a report of “sparks and a fire” at an Amazon cloud facility in the United Arab Emirates, and a temporary, deliberate shutdown. Reuters asked Amazon yesterday for confirmation that Iranian strikes had caused the problem, but Amazon “did not confirm or deny.” Amazon’s Health Dashboard now has an update, and the issue is more serious than had been previously reported, spanning three facilities in two countries. In addition to two direct impacts in the UAE, a Bahrain facility was damaged indirectly due to a nearby explosion. Iran is not named, but drone strikes from some source or another have resulted in structural damage, blackouts, and fires that triggered water-based fire suppression systems—resulting in water damage. “In addition, we can confirm that the AWS Management Console and command line interface (CLI) are disrupted by the failure of two Availability Zones,” the statement says. Inside Iran, internet connectivity has been almost entirely cut off since the start of the U.S.-Israeli military campaign on February 28, an information blackout experts blame on the Iranian regime itself. As was the case with last month's internet shutdown in Iran, a small amount of traffic continues to make its way into the country. The country's recently-developed system of whitelisting enables exceptions to internet blocks for people loyal to the govt. pic.twitter.com/gxbsJM1sRz — Doug Madory (also on Bluesky) (@DougMadory) February 28, 2026 Nonetheless, there is also reportedly an active cyber-offensive targeting Iran. Attackers appear to have overridden Iranian news websites, for instance, adding messages urging Iranians to take up arms against the ruling regime. The Health Dashboard item for the Amazon issue lists the severity of the problem as “Disrupted” in the UAE and “Impacted” in Bahrain, and says the situation for its operations in the region is “unpredictable.” It contains suggestions for customers including backing up data, migrating data out of the Middle East entirely, and rolling out any “disaster recovery plans” customers might already have in place.