Amazon said the drone strike damaged three facilities in the UAE and Bahrain

Amazon Two of its data centers in the United Arab Emirates and a facility in Bahrain were hit by drone strikes late Monday, taking the facilities offline, Web Services said.

The incident occurred on Sunday morning, when the company posted to its AWS health dashboard that “objects” hit data centers in the UAE, causing “sparks and fires”. The company said it was investigating power and connectivity issues at the site in Bahrain.

The company’s latest update at 7:19 pm EST acknowledged the shutdown was due to drone strikes related to the “ongoing conflict in the Middle East.”

“In the UAE, two of our facilities were directly hit, while in Bahrain, a drone strike near one of our facilities caused physical impacts to our infrastructure,” AWS said. “These strikes have caused structural damage, disrupted power delivery to our infrastructure, and in some cases required firefighting activities resulting in additional water damage.”

AWS said it is working to quickly restore service in the region, but expects recovery to take longer “given the nature of the physical damage involved.” The company said it would share an update on the situation by midnight or sooner if new information becomes available.

While it repairs physical damage at data centers, AWS said it is working to restore data access and service availability in affected areas, which does not necessarily mean bringing facilities fully back online.

AWS warned that instability in the Middle East is likely to continue, making operations “unpredictable”.

It said customers with workloads in the region should consider taking steps to mitigate the effects of the conflict, including backing up their data or potentially moving their workloads to other AWS regions.

Earlier on Monday, Amazon warned customers about delivery delays in the Middle East as Iran targeted the region with missiles and drones in response to US-Israeli strikes.

It added notices to the top of its marketplaces in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and the UAE warning customers of “extended delivery times in your region”.

This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.