Amazon’s AWS suffers outages in Bahrain, UAE amid Iranian strikes

Cloud operations run by Amazon Web Services (AWS) in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates suffered major power and connectivity outages on Monday as Iranian strikes across the region intensified, the company said.

Multiple availability zones, clusters of data centres, experienced failures, with AWS confirming that one site in the UAE lost power after “objects” hit the facility, causing sparks and a fire. Power was subsequently cut off as a precaution.

The company warned customers that full restoration may take “multiple hours” and advised businesses to shift workloads to other regions.

AWS confirms multiple zones affected

According to AWS’s status page, two cloud zones in the UAE remained offline, while a separate area experienced what the company described as “a localized power issue”. Some limited recovery earlier in the day was disrupted by further instability.

The cloud provider did not confirm whether the UAE incidents were directly linked to Iranian strikes but said another zone in Bahrain also suffered power problems.

AWS urged clients to rely temporarily on alternative global regions as engineers worked on recovery.

Region under fire as Iran expands attacks

The outages coincided with the third consecutive day of missile and drone strikes launched by Iran, which targeted Israel and several Arab states. Militias aligned with Tehran, including Hezbollah, also escalated attacks on Israel overnight, prompting retaliatory bombardments in Lebanon.

Israel’s military chief, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, said the country was bracing for “many prolonged days of combat ahead”. Israeli forces struck dozens of sites in Beirut and southern Lebanon after Hezbollah launched rockets and drones across the border.

“Hezbollah will pay a very heavy price for this,” Israeli military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said, adding that “all options” remain open, including a potential ground operation.

Wider Gulf impact: Oil sites targeted, diplomacy shifts

In Saudi Arabia, the Ras Tanura oil refinery came under attack from drones, according to the kingdom’s defence ministry. Authorities said the incoming aircraft were intercepted.

Iran’s missile campaign followed the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with Iranian officials saying more than 200 people have died in subsequent strikes on their territory.

Top Iranian official Ali Larijani reiterated on X: “We will not negotiate with the United States.”

US President Donald Trump, who had encouraged Iranians to “take over” their government a day earlier, indicated openness to discussions with Iran's new leadership.

Iran’s foreign minister separately suggested that some military units may now be acting autonomously, particularly regarding attacks on Gulf Arab nations that had previously served as intermediaries with Tehran.

Cloud disruptions add to regional fallout

The outages hitting AWS, a critical backbone for businesses, governments and financial services across the Gulf, underscore how digital infrastructure is increasingly vulnerable in a widening regional conflict.

With recovery expected to take hours and instability ongoing, the disruptions add another layer of uncertainty for Gulf economies already bracing for potential escalation.