Amazon Web Services Confirms Damage After Middle East Drone Strikes
Amazon’s data centers in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain were damaged by drone strikes over the weekend, disrupting the company’s cloud services, Amazon reported. on its Amazon Web Services status page. Two UAE facilities were directly hit, and a drone strike near an Amazon facility in Bahrain caused infrastructure damage.
“These strikes caused structural damage, disrupted electricity supplies to our infrastructure, and in some cases required fire suppression activities that resulted in additional water damage,” the company said in a statement. “We are working closely with local authorities and prioritizing the safety of our staff throughout our recovery efforts.”
An Amazon representative confirmed that the status page was the best source of information about the damage, but offered no further comment.
Over the weekend, the United States and Israel launched airstrikes against Iran after tensions over nuclear and regional activities escalated. Iran responded with missile and drone attacks across the region, and some of these drones hit AWS facilities. The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain are allies of the United States.
On Monday, the company warned customers in parts of the Middle East of longer delivery times and delays due to the attacks. CNBC reports that Amazon locations in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates are now alerting customers about delivery delays.
