RESOLVING THE LEDGER
This is one outlet's own report from Gizmodo — the article as it was filed. Other outlets are covering the same event; open the full story to compare every source side by side.
See the full story · 1 sources
Iran has reportedly been targeting Amazon data centers in the Middle East as part of an effort to hit US companies operating in the region. We might now have confirmation that Iranian missles hit their targets.
According to a report from Bloomberg, recently released satellite images appear to show damage done to two Amazon data centers in Bahrain, which the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) previously claimed to have hit.
The images, which Bloomberg said show evidence of significant damage, were released by the IRGC via Tasnim, a news agency with backing from the Iranian government. The publication obtained lower-resolution images of the sites from the European Space Agency's Sentinel-2 satellite constellation, which also appear to show damage at the two Amazon facilities in Bahrain, one in the town of Zallaq and another in Askar.
So, from the photos, it sure seems like Amazon's data centers were hit—if not destroyed, which is what the Iranian military claimed last week as a retaliatory strike following an American attack on an alleged nuclear site .
However, mum's the word out of the American e-commerce giant. Amazon has not commented on the attack and did not respond to a request for comment from Gizmodo.
Amazon has not exactly been a new target—directly or indirectly—as part of the ongoing American war on Iran.
Back in March, the company reported that its data centers in Bahrain experienced disruptions after increased drone activity related to the conflict. At the time, the company had at least one center knocked offline as the result of what was believed to be an Iranian drone strike.
The attacks on the facilities ramped up in April , as Iran started to target American tech companies more directly. It appears to have culminated in the latest missile attacks earlier this month, which may have destroyed the data centers.
Iran says that its attacks on American companies in the region is in response to those companies allegedly supporting or facilitating the U.S. and Israel, the two nations responsible for the ongoing campaign against Iran.
It'd be pretty tough for Amazon to argue that it doesn't resemble the accusations leveled by Iran. Amazon has publicly tied itself to the Trump administration in a number of ways, from contributing $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund to spending $40 million purchasing the rights to a widely panned Melania Trump documentary. We also know that Amazon is one of the contributors to Trump’s ongoing White House ballroom project , which Trump himself revealed would sit on top of a new multi-level underground military command center .
Meanwhile, the company has been cashing in on big government contracts, particularly with the military. Amazon has a massive contract to provide cloud services to the Pentagon, and just recently entered into an agreement to provide AI tools to military networks .
In the scheme of things, Amazon probably would trade those data centers for all the business its pulling in from the Trump administration, but it still can't be particularly thrilled about Iran returning all those rare earth metals to the dirt.
AIPROPX is an independent multi-source news index — we track, compare, and connect coverage from across the web into one place you won't find anywhere else.