Amazon Web Services says some Mideast data irretrievable

Amazon Web Services said on Sept. 15 it cannot restore some data from facilities in Bahrain and the UAE, which it said could be irretrievably lost.

Bahrain and UAE facilities affected

The company said the affected data were stored exclusively in those two countries and that the disruption followed strikes on the sites it attributed to Iran. It described the loss as limited to specific customers whose data were not replicated elsewhere.

The announcement is the first indication that some customer records kept only in the Middle East could be gone permanently, the company said. Officials advised impacted customers to consult their account dashboards and contingency plans as the firm assesses recoverability and compliance obligations.

The episode highlights a structural risk for cloud users that rely on single-region deployments in geopolitically sensitive areas. Firms with cross-region replication or backups outside the affected countries are likely to avoid direct data loss, while organizations using local-only storage may face business interruption and regulatory reporting requirements.

Watch for company statements and regional assessments over the next 72 hours. Markets and corporate IT teams will be looking for details on the number of affected accounts, the scope of irretrievable data, and any remediation timelines the company provides.