Cloud computing major Amazon Web Services (AWS) has confirmed that drone strikes damaged two of its data centers in the United Arab Emirates and one facility in Bahrain, triggering widespread service disruptions across the region amid escalating tensions in West Asia.
In its latest update, AWS said the sites suffered “physical impacts to infrastructure,” including structural damage, power outages, and fire suppression efforts that caused additional water damage. The company is working closely with local authorities and has prioritized personnel safety as restoration efforts continue.
According to AWS, two of its three availability zones in the UAE were directly struck by drones and remain significantly impaired. The third zone is operational but experiencing indirect service impacts. In Bahrain, a nearby strike caused infrastructure damage at one of its facilities.
Earlier reports indicated that unidentified objects had struck a UAE data center, causing a fire, though the link to the broader conflict was unclear at the time. The latest confirmation comes as regional instability intensifies following coordinated US and Israeli airstrikes across multiple Iranian cities on February 28.
Customers across the UAE and Bahrain regions are facing disruptions to several AWS services. The company said it is undertaking parallel recovery efforts, combining physical repairs with software-based mitigations to restore functionality. Restoring critical services such as S3 and DynamoDB has been prioritized, as many other AWS applications depend on them.
However, AWS cautioned that some recovery actions are limited by the physical condition of the damaged facilities, meaning full service restoration will depend on infrastructure repairs. With continued instability in West Asia, the company warned that operations may remain “unpredictable.”
AWS has advised affected customers to back up data immediately, activate disaster recovery plans, redirect traffic to other regions, and consider migrating workloads to alternate AWS locations to minimize further risks.
The incident underscores how escalating geopolitical tensions are now directly affecting critical digital infrastructure in the region.
