Amazon Web Services announced it cannot restore cloud facilities in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates damaged during March military strikes.
Six months after military strikes disrupted the Middle East, Amazon Web Services has confirmed that its cloud-computing facilities in Bahrain and parts of the United Arab Emirates cannot be restored. The company said in an update posted to AWS’ health dashboard that the damage at multiple Bahrain-based sites exceeded what its services are designed to withstand. After a thorough assessment, we have determined that we are unable to restore access to the resources and data hosted exclusively in this region,
AWS wrote. In a separate post, AWS said it’s similarly been unable to recover resources and data stored in one of its availability zones in the UAE. It continues to work to restore two other UAE zones that were affected. The posts mark AWS’ first public update on the incidents since April. Amazon said in March that two of its data centers in the UAE had been directly struck by drones, while a facility in Bahrain was also damaged by a nearby strike. The company told customers to move their workloads to other AWS regions, and warned that instability was likely to continue in the Middle East, making operations “unpredictable.” Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed responsibility for the strikes and said it targeted the Bahrain facility for Amazon’s support of the U.S. military.
Structural Damage Breaks the Multi-AZ Redundancy Model
Cloud providers design their infrastructure around a core assumption: that disasters are local. Availability Zones are a key part of how cloud providers offer reliability, operating as separate facilities with their own power and cooling systems, but close enough to operate as part of the same region. The idea is that if one facility fails, the others keep running, allowing customers to spread their systems across several zones to reduce the risk of an outage.
What happened in March broke that model. The problems began in early March, when two of Amazon’s UAE data centres were hit directly, and the Bahrain site was damaged by strikes nearby, with unidentified objects striking the site according to earlier reports. The incident reportedly caused sparks and a fire, prompting emergency teams to switch off power to the facility and its backup generators to prevent the situation from worsening. Amazon reported structural damage, problems with power delivery and, in some areas, water damage from its own fire suppression systems. Further disruption followed in Bahrain later that month, and by the end of April, around 60 services in the region were still down.
As of mid-September 2026, Amazon Web Services has been unable to restore full operations at its Bahrain region, designated ME-SOUTH-1, or at one of the three availability zones inside its UAE region, ME-CENTRAL-1. The damage to our infrastructure spanned multiple Availability Zones and exceeded what our regional and multi-AZ services are designed to withstand,
the company said. Reuters reported the statement on Tuesday.
Customer Migration and Financial Relief Measures
AWS is now helping customers in Bahrain shift their operations to other AWS regions while recovery work continues, urging customers to migrate all accessible resources to other Regions
and rebuild the rest from off-site backups. The company stopped billing for both affected regions. Six months later, Amazon says it has helped Bahrain customers move their operations elsewhere, though there is still no public answer on whether any customer data has been recovered. AWS did not give a specific timeline for the restoration of electricity or full access.
Wider Implications for the Gulf’s Artificial Intelligence Ambitions
The attacks have raised questions about the security of future data center developments in the Gulf region, which has looked to capitalize on the surge in infrastructure demand tied to the artificial intelligence boom. In May 2025, OpenAI, Nvidia, Oracle and Cisco signed up to be core partners on UAE Stargate, a massive campus that was expected to have 5-gigawatt capacity and cover 10 square miles. The UAE is now considering revising the project to disperse the facilities across the country, and implementing enhanced security measures, including building some sites underground, using blast-resistant concrete and drone and missile interceptors. Bahrain’s Interior Ministry had also said civil defence teams were responding to a fire following the incidents.