In March 2026, Iranian drone strikes damaged critical infrastructure across the Persian Gulf region, affecting both U.S. military installations in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as well as commercial data centre facilities in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Photographs from military personnel documented extensive destruction at the military sites, suggesting that the full scope of the damage was not adequately conveyed to the American public at the time of the attacks.

Six months later, Amazon Web Services formally acknowledged that the strikes resulted in permanent data loss for some customers whose information was stored at the affected Gulf data centres. This confirmation reveals the broader civilian impact of the Iranian campaign, extending beyond military targets to affect commercial operations and customer data security, whilst raising questions about infrastructure resilience in geopolitically volatile regions.