They're finished
It's one level of stupidity to drone strike random uninvolved countries, it's an order higher to make sysadmin grumpy over uptime.
Iranian news service claims drone strikes on AWS were deliberate, to probe for US datacenter dependencies
Iranian publisher Fars News Agency, which is aligned with the country’s government, has claimed the drone strikes on Amazon Web Services’ Middle East datacenters were deliberate and had strategic significance. In a Telegram post that The Register translated from Farsi to English using Google Translate and Bing Translate, the …
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Monday 9th March 2026 13:11 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: They're finished
"The President of Iran apologised this morning for the attacks they conducted on other Gulf nations (sysadmins next?)"
Yeah, made me laugh. Left hand apologising about what right hand did.
Like the president or minister of Lebanon asking via media, to Hezbollah to stop them from rocketing Israel ...
Dude, they ARE in Lebanon and probably some have a Lebanese passport !
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Monday 9th March 2026 13:20 GMT David Hicklin
Re: They're finished
> Bahrain has a major naval facilities, UAE host a major US military air base
According to the reports I have seen, they were mostly evacuated and the Arab states are not allowing them or their airspace to be used for attacks on Iran.
So a really stupid move for Iran to upset their neighbour's although I suspect the attacks are aimed at causing an energy crisis in the world which is seems to be succeeding at. Where the off ramp is for this war I have no idea - unless Trump does a TACO leaving Isreal high and dry.
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Monday 9th March 2026 14:37 GMT Jellied Eel
Re: They're finished
So a really stupid move for Iran to upset their neighbour's although I suspect the attacks are aimed at causing an energy crisis in the world which is seems to be succeeding at. Where the off ramp is for this war I have no idea - unless Trump does a TACO leaving Isreal high and dry.
Trump is winning bigly! At least he thinks he is. So the US might be burning through a couple of billion a day and demonstrating to the world what Western democracy looks like. Verbally attacking your allies like the UK & Spain and announcing that Trump will select Iran's new leadership. But it's also doing pretty well from the oil & gas price shock given Europe swapped their dependency on Russia to the US. Plus naked capitalism, and oil & gas cargoes that might have gone to Europe heading for Asia instead, because they'll pay more.
Sal's shipping channel also makes some good points that it's not just oil that's the problem. Other cargoes like urea were exported via the Gulf, and Gulf states are also very dependent on shipping for things like food, and even water. For the UK though, hopefully this has been a rather rude wake-up call, Millibrain will get fired, and the UK goes back to exploiting our own energy resources. That will take years to come on stream, but will massively reduce UK dependency on energy imports.
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Friday 6th March 2026 09:52 GMT Lon24
And the result Fars was?
If the Pentagon discovered that local Command & Control depended on an unprotected exposed commercial cloud provider - then the SysAdmin responsible will have more to worry about than an incoming Iranian drone.
Not even the US Department for Wars could be as stupid as their Secretary of State - could they?
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Friday 6th March 2026 12:10 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Different analysis
From analysis I've seen (which convinced me, but then what do I know?) this was an attack on the Gulf States not the US. Because the Gulf States are trying to diversify their economies, and also trying to trade on their political stability, Iran is trying to screw with their economies in any way possible. Dubai, and others, have pushed themselves as a place you could set up in the Middle East with reasonable governments and no war or terrorism problem.
Of course, there's also another explanation. There is no plan. The Iranian foreign minister gave an interview a couple of days ago and was asked about the bombing of Oman. They'd not given permission for the US to use their bases and had been mediating between the US and Iran - but got attacked anyway. He said that the government hadn't authorised an attack on Oman, but that they weren't fully in control of their own forces - as command has been delegated to local commanders as a way to avoid decapitation strikes stopping their forces from responding. It wasn't quite an apology, but getting there. In the 12 day war with Israel, Iran's air defence command got whacked in the first few minutes but the government were also unable to use their ballistic missile forces for about 36 hours to attack Israel, because their command and control had been so effectively fucked up.
So it could just be that someone in the IRGC (Revolutionary Guards) had a bad time in that hotel in Dubai that got hit. And perhaps they didn't like Rings of Power - and have declared a personal vendetta against Amazon. Equally the Foreign Minister could be lying, and although C&C has been delegated, everyone also got a list of targets to hit in advance. However the IRGC do have form on attacking at a local level, without bothering to inform the rest of the Iranian government or military. So take your pick.
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Friday 6th March 2026 19:16 GMT Jellied Eel
Re: Different analysis
From analysis I've seen (which convinced me, but then what do I know?) this was an attack on the Gulf States not the US...
...Of course, there's also another explanation. There is no plan. The Iranian foreign minister gave an interview a couple of days ago and was asked about the bombing of Oman. They'd not given permission for the US to use their bases and had been mediating between the US and Iran - but got attacked anyway.
What do we know, indeed. But what we do know is that Iran stated clearly and repeatedly that if the US attacked it, it would retaliate and attack US bases and interests anywhere in range. So Oman has US bases and other interests, so those were attacked. If Amazon had contracts with the US government (or Israel), then their facilities become dual-use and legitimate targets. Iran's strategy seems to be both causing direct pain to US interests, and political pain to countries that host US military facilities. And it might be working, eg-
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/drone-strike-drives-calls-end-british-military-presence-cyprus-2026-03-06/
NICOSIA, March 6 (Reuters) - A drone strike this week on a British air base in Cyprus has renewed calls for an end to British military presence on the Mediterranean island as many fear being dragged into the wider Iran conflict.
Cypriot politicians have long been uneasy with Britain's two air bases, Akrotiri and Dhekelia, which have existed as sovereign British territory since Cyprus gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1960.
The bases have long been an issue with some Cypriot politicians, who're now exploiting the current situation. Cyprus can't unilaterally break the treaty, and given the fuss around Diego Garcia, the US won't want that to happen either.
However the IRGC do have form on attacking at a local level, without bothering to inform the rest of the Iranian government or military. So take your pick.
What did people expect to happen? This is always the problem with decapitation strikes because if you eliminate the leadership, who's left to negotiate with? Especially given Iran knew decapitation and regime change was the objective, so implemented their 'Mosaic' plan to provide autonomy to their forces. Hopefully those plans include stop conditions so if there's a ceasefire, they'll halt their attacks. But so far, none of the parties seem willing to halt the conflict and instead are escalating things.
So it could just be that someone in the IRGC (Revolutionary Guards) had a bad time in that hotel in Dubai that got hit.
Or it could be that Iran knew the US was moving people off-base and into hotels. Fairmont is Canadian, so unlikely that's the reason. Or it could just be that the hotel wasn't the target. Which is the usual problem when there's an awful lot of missiles flying around, including all the missile interceptors. What goes up must come down and one of the early videos showed a falling booster impacting. Wreckage from intercepts is going to land.. Somewhere, and even a successful intercept might leave a viable warhead, or just unspent fuel and some heavy components. This was a well-known concern from waaay back in the Gulf War with Patriots v Scuds. An intercept of a ballistic missile might knock it off its trajectory a little, but the wreckage is still going somewhere. With the added concern that if the payloads were chemical or biological, it might still spread those, albeit over probably a smaller area than an airburst.
(Also interesting that Iran seems to be firing some type of cluster missile at Israel, although the hot stuff could be debris or possibly decoys. Regular cluster bomblets wouldn't glow, and there seemed to be too many to be a powered MIRV.)
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Friday 6th March 2026 22:18 GMT munnoch
Re: Different analysis
A lot of people are going to be thinking twice in the future about transiting through an airport hub in that part of the world. That part of their economic diversification plan has just been set back by years or decades. If we're going down we take you all with us...
Fun fact. The one and only time I've flown Emirates via Dubai, the second leg towards the UK flew over Iran and I tuned off flight mode to take a picture to record the event (hence it was geotagged). My iPhotos world map still has that single dot in the middle of no where.
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Sunday 8th March 2026 17:20 GMT Jellied Eel
I can imagine that any new datacentres in this region will be compartmentalised, with sufficient blocking infrastructure between compartments.
That wouldn't really work for the 'hyperscale' datacentres. Trying to turn them into databunkers would massively increase cost and complicate cooling. Plus with 1,000kg+ bombs being thrown around, would be very hard to prevent damage from either the direct blast, or dust choking up fans and filters.
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Monday 9th March 2026 12:14 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Jellied Eel,
The biggest risk is still drones with relatively small warheads.
The Iranian air force isn't in any state to chuck around 1,000lb bombs. Short range ballistic missiles can be intercepted by even quite old SAMs - and have big enough warheads (and are expensive enough) that they're worth intercepting - where drones are more numerous and cheap. The Intermediate range ballistic missiles are bloody expensive, as are the interceptors, and they're also the easiest to track and destroy on the ground. There's also cruise missiles, but those can be intercepted by aircraft as well as SAMs.
You can't really harden against ballistic missiles and large cruise missiles, but you can shoot at lot of them down, and it's financially worth doing. But you can try to harden against drones, at least to the extent that you can mitigate the damage relatively cheaply. And if you force the drone payload and capabilities to be increased, then that turns them from cheap drones into expensive drones, or even cruise missiles, which cost a lot more and so the enemy can't afford as many.
It's an underappreciated strategy to make the job of drones significantly harder, forcing them to be improved to the extent that they're no longer cheap-as-chips, and so the enemy can't afford to have as many.
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Monday 9th March 2026 14:23 GMT Jellied Eel
The biggest risk is still drones with relatively small warheads.
The Iranian air force isn't in any state to chuck around 1,000lb bombs.
And yet, it is. Well, Iranian missile forces. But drones have been evolving. So the Shahed-136 or Geran-2 started with a 50kg warhead, but that's increased to 90kg+
And if you force the drone payload and capabilities to be increased, then that turns them from cheap drones into expensive drones, or even cruise missiles, which cost a lot more and so the enemy can't afford as many.
Sure, but it's all relative. So Ukraine has drones that are basically light aircraft that have been converted into UAVs and can carry larger payloads than Shahed/Geran. Other nations, or non-state actors can do the same. Currently Shaheds can be hidden in and launched from trucks or shipping containers, larger drones can't. So can truck them to a launch site, bolt wings on and launch, but that takes longer and leaves drones & crews more vulnerable to detection and interdiction. It's also interesting that the US has used their LUCAS, which is a Shahed clone to strike Iran. Kind of getting your own back I guess.
But then..
Short range ballistic missiles can be intercepted by even quite old SAMs - and have big enough warheads (and are expensive enough) that they're worth intercepting - where drones are more numerous and cheap. The Intermediate range ballistic missiles are bloody expensive, as are the interceptors, and they're also the easiest to track and destroy on the ground. There's also cruise missiles, but those can be intercepted by aircraft as well as SAMs.
This is where 'orientalism' creeps in, and propaganda presenting a false picture or 'orcs with shovels' or 'mad mullahs' using crude weapons vs the West's sophisticated, multi-million dollar weapons like our 1970's era Tomahawks, or $3m+ Patriot PAC-3 interceptors. But Iran developed MRBMs like their Khorramshahr-4 with a 1,500kg payload. Or they've been firing their Fatah-1 & 2 hypersonic missiles at Israel, as they did during the 12-day conflict. Israel's been working with the (MS) Media to limit video, but camera phones are everywhere, and videos have been appearing on Instagram and Telegram. Some 'experts' had dismissed the Fatahs as vaporware, yet their distinctive vapor trails have been visible in some daylight videos, along with impacts. One video I saw may have also shown an incoming missile 'dodging' interceptors and performing a pretty radical terminal manouver. Unlikely the missile is smart enough to actually detect and dodge an interceptor, but that seemed to work and the missile impacted.
So then it's the underappreciated strategy of using cheap drones & missiles to drain interceptor stockpiles, especially when there are multiple demands on those, and the US can apparently only produce 700 PAC-3 interceptors a year.. Which is a stratgey Russia has developed during their SMO. And then who's going to run out of weapons first, Israel and the US, or Iran. The '3-day' regime change operation doesn't seem to be going exactly to plan, but then conflicts have a nasty habit of doing that. Plus the possibility of blowback, and the regime change hitting Israel or Gulf States rather than Iran, especially when Israel''s loss tolerance is much lower. Which is a big risk if Israel takes a lot of IDF casualties going into Lebanon.. Or there's the Houthis. They hit Israel pretty hard during the last conflict, but don't seem to have gotten involved in this one, yet.
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Tuesday 10th March 2026 11:03 GMT I ain't Spartacus
This is where 'orientalism' creeps in, and propaganda presenting a false picture or 'orcs with shovels' or 'mad mullahs' using crude weapons vs the West's sophisticated, multi-million dollar weapons like our 1970's era Tomahawks, or $3m+ Patriot PAC-3 interceptors
Jellied Eel,
As so often, in your urgency to claim the high ground and that disagreement is propaganda, you totally miss my point. Also, quick side point, Tomahawk isn't a 1970s weapon - the design is old, but the seeker, terrain following system and warhead have all had regular updates. I assume the airframe is broadly the same, but I seem to recall they've also added a few stealth features, even if not changing it to a full stealth cruise missile.
My point isn't orientalism, and that Iran's big missiles are bad. It's that Iran's big missiles cost similar amounts to the air defence missiles required to shoot them down. So financially the best bet is have sufficient air defence to do that - and so long as your economy is of a similar size to Iran's (if not bigger) this is a relatively easy problem to solve. A PAC3 costs $3m, but an IRBM is a similar amount.
If you can also layer your air defence, then you should try to fire the appropriate rounds for each threat. So shoot down Shahed's with APKWS laser-guided rockets - which cost tens of thousands, or Hellfire, Martlet and weapons of that class. You can probably harden some targets against Shaheds, but probably not many. Cheap SAMs are also good, something like CAMM / Land Ceptor / Sea Ceptor is a bit more expensive, but in a similar ballpark. There's a lot of upgraded Hawk SAMs in the Middle East, that should do the job at a sensible cost as well. Similarly Ukraine's bigger drones, that are light aircraft, are going to cost similar amounts, and so merit similar responses. You might have to fire an expensive Patriot at it, if it's going somewhere vital - but you should limit that if possible.
Surely Shahed is basically a cheaper, less capable cruise missile at this point? Cruise missiles are harder to intercept though, being faster. Although don't Iran have a jet-powered Shahed? In which case that's going to be about as hard to deal with.
But if you can harden targets against your el-cheapo drones, with tiny warheads, then at least you can force the enemy to use more expensive stuff that is affordable to intercept. Also, unlike Ukraine, Iran doesn't have viable air defences, making intercepting their missiles at source a much more viable strategy.
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Tuesday 10th March 2026 16:35 GMT Jellied Eel
Surely Shahed is basically a cheaper, less capable cruise missile at this point? Cruise missiles are harder to intercept though, being faster. Although don't Iran have a jet-powered Shahed? In which case that's going to be about as hard to deal with.
But drones are approaching the speed & range of less capable cruise missiles like Tomahawks. Then there's pricing and assuming that Iran's cost base is the same as the Wests, which isn't the case.. So why a Patriot interceptor costs $3m. Or why the US defence budget is $1tn and Russia, China, Iran etc aren't anywhere close to that. Or why a Patriot system costs $1bn for some trucks, generators and electronics. But Lockheed thanks you for your service, and other nations have state owned defence companies that don't have to pay shareholders.
Also, unlike Ukraine, Iran doesn't have viable air defences, making intercepting their missiles at source a much more viable strategy.
Ah. Ground based interceptors. So Russia has been less successful at intercepting Ukraines drones & missiles. This could be because Ukraine has superior weapons vs Russia's inferior air defences. Or it could just be that Ukraine lies about their intercept success rates. So regularly shooting down 110/100 targets, and then showing images of bomb damage. Or that damage could simply be the result of a 'successful' intercept and failing debris. Which is an issue in densely populated places like Bahrain, or Israel. It can be a bit of semantics to say Russia, Iran, Ukraine, Israel or the US struck a civilian building when those buildings might not have been the target, just collateral damage. Or Trump claiming it was Iran's missiles that hit the school, because 'they're not very accurate'. Now there's video of a Tomahawk double tap, which is a bit awkward after being officially denied by the CiC.
But there's been videos of unsuccessful intercepts over Israel and the Gulf States, so possibly more evidence that the effectiveness has been overstated. Along with the problem of states rapidly burning through interceptor stockpiles, and very long lead times to replace stocks.. Which is an issue for Ukraine because they've been relying on donations, and now they've got deep pocketed competitors bidding against them.
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