DUBAI,— Amazon’s cloud unit, AWS, says it cannot restore access to one of three service zones in the United Arab Emirates or to a data center in Bahrain, months after both were damaged during the war involving Iran. The information comes from a status update reviewed by Reuters on Tuesday.

AWS, part of Amazon.com Inc., said the harm to its Bahrain systems reached across several “availability zones,” which are groups of data centers located in the same region.

The company said this level of damage went beyond what its backup systems were built to handle. AWS said it is now helping customers based in Bahrain move their operations to other regions.

In the UAE, AWS said it still cannot reach data and resources stored only in one zone, called mec1-az2. Work continues to fix systems across the broader UAE network and in two other zones that were hit.

The trouble started in March, after the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran. Iran responded by firing missiles and drones at Israel and at Gulf nations hosting American military sites.

AWS said two of its UAE facilities were hit directly, and a drone attack near a Bahrain site caused physical damage.

Reuters has previously reported, citing a source familiar with the matter, that the outages disrupted some banking services at the time.

The strikes have raised concerns about how well the Gulf region’s fast-growing cloud and artificial intelligence systems can withstand attacks.

Reuters reported last week that the UAE is now reworking plans for a large AI data center project, looking at spreading out facilities and building underground, blast-resistant structures.

AWS said that once the first Bahrain zone was damaged in March, it told customers to shift their work elsewhere. Most did so before a second zone was struck in April, which knocked out the entire Bahrain region.

Since then, AWS said it has helped clients restart operations elsewhere, using saved backups or other fixes where possible.

The company said it reviewed all damaged systems and tried every option to recover data that had not already been moved before Bahrain went offline.

AWS said it remains committed to helping customers in both countries. In the UAE, the company said it is working to replace the damaged equipment and will share progress in the coming months.

For Bahrain, it plans to give another update in early 2027.

AWS added that it has informed government authorities in both countries and continues coordinating with them.

(With files from Reuters)

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