Since the start of the Iran war on February 28, 2026, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has attacked several AWS data centers in the Gulf region with drones. Two data centers in the United Arab Emirates and one in Bahrain were hit.
Confirmed Damage
Amazon Web Services confirmed via its Health Dashboard: "These attacks have caused structural damage, disrupted the power supply to our infrastructure and in some cases required firefighting efforts that led to additional water damage."
AWS says it is working closely with local authorities and prioritizing employee safety.
Why AWS?
AWS hosts parts of the US military infrastructure. The attack on civilian cloud data centers is an escalation: Iran is treating commercial tech infrastructure as a military target because the same infrastructure processes both civilian and military workloads.
Consequences for Enterprises
Companies using AWS regions in the Gulf area must rethink their disaster recovery plans. Multi-region failover is no longer just a best practice for availability but for physical security. The attacks demonstrate: cloud infrastructure is not an abstract service — it consists of buildings that can be hit.
Sources: AWS Health Dashboard, CNBC (04.03.2026), CBS News (13.03.2026), Free Press Journal.