Amazon’s Middle‑East Data Centres Crippled by Conflict, Shares Slip

Amazon Web Services has confirmed a grim reality: a chunk of customer data stored exclusively in its Bahrain data centre and parts of its United Arab Emirates network is gone for good. The loss stems from a series of drone and missile strikes linked to the escalating US‑Iran war, which slammed the Middle‑East sites early this year.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps openly claimed responsibility for hitting the Bahrain facility, saying it was retaliation for Amazon’s logistical support to U.S. military operations. Two separate AWS farms in Bahrain took direct hits, and subsequent attacks in April compounded the damage. The strikes shredded server racks, knocked out power, and even caused water damage when fire‑suppression systems kicked in.

In the UAE, the picture isn’t any rosier. While some workloads survived, the affected availability zones are currently deemed unreliable. Amazon engineers are still scrambling to pull whatever they can from the remaining infrastructure, but the company has already advised customers to move any accessible resources out of the region as soon as possible.

On the trading floor, the news sent Amazon’s (AMZN) shares sliding roughly 2% on Tuesday. Sentiment on retail‑focused platforms like Stocktwits turned bearish, and even the tech‑heavy QQQ ETF showed heightened pessimism. Still, the broader year‑to‑date story for Amazon is mixed – the stock is up about 7% overall, but the Middle‑East setback adds a fresh cloud of uncertainty.

Amazon isn’t leaving the region entirely behind. The company says it will keep its data centres in India, Israel and several European nations fully operational, and it plans to issue a more detailed update on the Bahrain sites early next year. For now, customers with critical workloads in the Gulf are being urged to lean on backups elsewhere and to re‑evaluate their disaster‑recovery strategies.

Investors and analysts will be watching closely to see how quickly AWS can restore confidence, especially as geopolitical tensions continue to roil the global tech supply chain.