Amazon Reports Drone Strikes on AWS Data Centers in UAE and Bahrain

Amazon stated that several of its AWS data centers in the Middle East experienced physical damage and service disruptions following drone strikes. The incidents affected cloud computing operations and prompted the company to issue guidance to customers in the region.

According to Amazon, two AWS data centers in the United Arab Emirates were directly hit by drones, while a third facility in Bahrain was impacted by a nearby strike. The company reported that these events caused structural damage and interrupted power supply at the affected sites.

Fire suppression systems were activated at some locations, which led to additional water damage. Cooling systems were also impaired, and at least one site experienced flooding exceeding an inch before the situation was stabilized.

The disruption resulted in outages for AWS services such as EC2 compute, S3 storage, and DynamoDB within the region. Amazon reported that at least 14 EC2 server racks were taken offline due to the damage, and a power shutdown was initiated by the fire department at one of the UAE facilities.

What the numbers show

• Two AWS data centers in the UAE were directly struck by drones
• One AWS facility in Bahrain was affected by a nearby drone strike
• At least 14 EC2 server racks were taken offline

Amazon advised customers to back up their data and consider moving workloads to other AWS regions, citing an extended recovery period expected from the physical damage. The company stated it is working with local authorities to restore operations and is prioritizing employee safety during the recovery process.

One of the impacted UAE data centers, identified as Availability Zone mec1-az2, was struck by objects that caused sparks and fire. This led to a power outage and temporary loss of connectivity in that zone, according to Amazon and AWS statements.

AWS announced that restoring connectivity to the affected availability zone would require several hours, but confirmed that other zones in the region remained operational during the incident. The events took place amid a broader series of Iranian drone and missile strikes across the Gulf region, which also targeted airports, ports, and residential areas.

On March 1, 2026, Amazon reported the incident involving its UAE data center, confirming the impact on services and the ongoing efforts to address the damage and restore full operations.

* This article is based on publicly available information at the time of writing.