Iran Bombs Amazon Cloud In Bahrain

Amazon’s cloud computing business in Bahrain suffered damage after an Iranian strike, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.

The report, citing a person familiar with the matter, said the attack targeted facilities linked to Amazon Web Services (AWS) on the Gulf island. Bahrain hosts one of AWS’s key Middle East regions, ME-SOUTH-1, which serves clients across the region.

Bahrain’s Interior Ministry had earlier confirmed that civil defence teams extinguished a fire at a company facility following what authorities described as an Iranian attack. It did not name the company, give casualty figures or reveal the full extent of damage.

NaijaChoice News reports that the incident marks another blow to AWS infrastructure in the Gulf amid the ongoing Middle East conflict. Earlier in March, Iranian drone strikes directly damaged two AWS facilities in the UAE and one in Bahrain, causing power outages, structural damage and prolonged service disruptions that forced Amazon to shift customer workloads to other regions.

Amazon has not yet issued an official comment on Wednesday’s development. The company previously described the March attacks as having caused “physical impact” to its Bahrain site, including water damage from fire suppression efforts.

For Nigerian businesses, the news carries fresh implications. Thousands of local firms, fintech platforms, banks and government agencies rely on AWS for cloud storage, mobile apps, e-commerce and data processing. Many route traffic through the company’s Middle East and European regions because of latency and cost advantages.

Industry watchers say repeated hits on AWS facilities underscore the vulnerability of depending on overseas data centres located in conflict zones. Nigerian digital experts have long pushed for more local cloud capacity and data sovereignty to reduce such risks.

No immediate reports of service outages for African users have surfaced, but analysts warn that prolonged instability could affect everything from online banking to government digital services. Amazon had earlier waived a full month’s charges for affected UAE and Bahrain customers after the March strikes.

The latest strike comes a day after Iran’s Revolutionary Guards renewed threats against US-linked economic targets in the Gulf. Bahrain, home to the US Fifth Fleet, has been drawn deeper into the tensions.