March 3, 2026 | SUNTV Global Channel
Cloud infrastructure across the Middle-East has been thrown into turmoil after drone strikes directly hit data centres operated by Amazon in the United Arab Emirates, causing widespread service disruptions.
In an official update late Monday, the tech giant confirmed that two of its facilities in the UAE were “directly struck” by drones amid the escalating regional conflict. The company also revealed that a separate site in Bahrain sustained damage from a nearby drone strike, compounding outages for customers relying on its cloud network.
According to Amazon’s service dashboard, the affected regions “experienced physical impacts to infrastructure as a result of drone strikes,” leading to structural damage and power supply interruptions.
“These strikes have caused structural damage, disrupted power delivery to our infrastructure, and in some cases required fire suppression activities that resulted in additional water damage,” the company stated.
The unprecedented attacks mark one of the rare occasions where major commercial cloud infrastructure in the Gulf has been physically targeted, highlighting the growing risks to global digital networks as tensions intensify between the United States, Israel, and Iran.
The strikes come as smoke was seen rising over parts of Beirut following fresh Israeli air raids on the city’s southern suburbs, underscoring how the widening conflict is increasingly spilling into civilian and commercial sectors.
While Amazon did not confirm any casualties among its staff, it emphasised that it is working closely with local authorities and prioritising employee safety as recovery operations continue.
Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world’s largest cloud computing provider, powers thousands of applications, websites, and artificial intelligence platforms globally. The disruption has raised concerns among businesses and institutions across the Middle-East that depend on its infrastructure.
Amazon has advised customers in affected regions to back up critical data and consider shifting workloads to alternative global servers while engineers work to restore full services.
Earlier on Sunday, the company had hinted at trouble after reporting that one of its UAE facilities had been struck by unspecified “objects,” warning clients to brace for unpredictable service challenges.
As the Middle-East crisis deepens, the targeting of digital infrastructure signals a dangerous new phase in modern warfare — one where the battlefield now includes the backbone of the global internet.
— SUNTV Global Channel Reporting
