When Iranian drones struck three Amazon Web Services data centres in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain on 1 March 2026, the disruption was immediate. Payment firms Alaan and Hubpay reported disruption to their services. Banks, including Emirates NBD and the Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank experienced intermittent failures in mobile and phone banking services. Careem, the region’s leading taxi and delivery platform, reported disruption before its chief executive confirmed services were fully restored 48 hours later.
Most commentary has focused on what this means for technology investment in the Gulf, the legal implications of targeting military-commercial infrastructure and the physical security of data centres. These are worthy of attention, but they are not the most important question the strikes raise.
