- Iran says drone strikes on AWS facilities in Bahrain and UAE were intentional
- Amazon only noted “sparks and fires” caused by “objects”
- Iran says ‘structural damage’ also inflicted
Iran’s Fars news agency claimed that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) deliberately targeted Amazon data centers in drone strikes, alleging that the facilities supported US military and intelligence operations.
Two facilities in the United Arab Emirates were reportedly hit earlier this week, and another facility in Bahrain was damaged by a nearby drone strike, leading to the shutdown of some of Amazon’s cloud services in the region.
Amazon said only that “objects” hit its data center in the United Arab Emirates, causing “sparks and fires,” but the company did not directly link the incident to the ongoing conflict in the region.
Iran claims responsibility for AWS outages in UAE and Bahrain
“This measure was taken in order to identify the role of these centers in supporting the enemy’s military and intelligence activities,” Fars News Agency said in a Telegram article (translated via Google Translate).
“Two centers in the United Arab Emirates were directly affected and one center in Bahrain also suffered serious physical damage,” the statement continued.
Amazon’s official update only talks about power outages caused by the fire and that it was waiting for permission to reconnect power in order to bring services back online. Fars also notes that “structural damage” and “severe physical damage” was inflicted.
TechRadar Pro contacted Amazon to confirm these comments, but the company did not immediately respond.
Amazon is not the only company facing problems in the Middle East, according to the Fars news agency. “The targeting of Amazon and Microsoft in these operations dealt a serious blow to the enemy’s technological and information infrastructure,” the Telegram message read.
As for future plans, it is unclear how the two companies will proceed with regional investments. AWS had committed to spending $5.3 billion in Saudi Arabia to launch a new cloud region, while Microsoft plans a much larger investment of $15.2 billion in the UAE between 2023 and 2029.
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