AWS Confirms Permanent Data Loss After Strikes on Gulf Data Centers
Six months after Iranian strikes damaged Amazon Web Services data centers in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, AWS has confirmed that some customer data cannot be recovered. In a September 15 dashboard update, the company said it was unable to restore access to certain resources hosted in facilities affected by the regional conflict.
In the UAE, data was permanently lost in one of the region’s three availability zones, identified as mec1-az2. AWS said recovery work continues in the other two zones, including replacement of damaged infrastructure. The company expects to provide further updates as restoration efforts proceed over the coming months.
In Bahrain, the impact was broader. AWS reported that it could not restore resources or data across any of the country’s three availability zones. According to the company, the damage extended across multiple facilities and exceeded the resilience levels its regional and multi-zone services were designed to withstand.
The attacks began on March 1, following US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28. AWS advised customers to migrate workloads to other regions and restore inaccessible resources from remote backups. It also suspended billing in the affected regions and reportedly issued $150 million in customer credits.
Additional Iranian attacks struck Bahrain facilities on April 1 and July 24. AWS said many customers had already moved workloads elsewhere before later disruptions. Satellite imagery reportedly confirmed damage from the July strike.
AWS said it remains committed to customers in Bahrain and plans another update in early 2027. The incidents occurred amid a widening US-Israeli conflict with Iran, which has disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb, contributing to concerns about global energy supplies. The conflict has also coincided with increased international interest in renewable energy, including rooftop solar power. The losses highlight the operational consequences of physical attacks on cloud infrastructure and the limits of regional redundancy.