Satellite images have revealed new damage to Amazon data centers in the Middle East along with at least one crucial Saudi oil facility, following missile and drone attacks by Iran and its Houthi allies.
The images from Europe’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellites provide evidence of a widening war as the United States and several Gulf states exchange military strikes with Iran, the Houthi faction in Yemen, and Iran-backed militias in Iraq. Such satellite images also offer independent verification of claimed war damage, despite the US government having pressured US commercial firms and even Europe to restrict satellite imagery of the region.
Three Amazon data centers in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain were already previously damaged by Iranian drone strikes on March 1. Those earlier attacks stuck Amazon with months of expected repairs and forced Amazon Web Services customers in the Middle East to migrate workloads to other cloud regions.
But on July 21, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps issued a statement saying it had once again attacked and “destroyed” Amazon data centers in Bahrain by using cruise missiles. The statement was shared through the Iranian state media outlet Fars News Agency and reported by Western media outlets such as CNBC.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps followed up by releasing high-resolution satellite images showing damage to two Amazon data centers located at the coastal towns of Zallaq and Askar in Bahrain. It was not immediately clear what satellite services Iran used, but the country has reportedly been making use of commercial imagery from Chinese satellites.
Analysts used imagery from the Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellites to verify signs of the strikes on the data centers but were unable to determine the extent of the damage, according to Bloomberg News. The news outlet reached out to Bahrain, the US military, and Amazon for comment but all declined to comment or did not respond.
The AWS dashboard showing the status of AWS services in the affected cloud region has not been updated since April 30. That last status update had stated the damaged data centers were “unable to reliably support customer operations” and recommended customers migrate their resources to other cloud regions.
Amazon did not respond to an Ars request for comment.
The newest Iranian strikes on Amazon data centers may have been more symbolic than anything. But Houthi missile and drone strikes on Saudi oil refineries and the crucial port of Yanbu used for oil exports could prove far more consequential for the world.
On July 20, the Houthis officially declared a naval blockade aimed at shutting down Saudi oil exports going through the Red Sea shipping chokepoint in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The Houthis have since attacked several Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea, along with launching missiles and drones at Saudi oil refineries and the port of Yanbu on July 25.
The Houthi attacks threaten Saudi Arabia’s ongoing attempts to reroute oil exports away from the Strait of Hormuz shipping lanes that have been disrupted by the ongoing war between the United States and Iran. The Saudis have been sending out more oil shipments from the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea, where tankers can exit the southern end of the Red Sea via the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to reach Asian markets.
But the Iranian-backed Houthi faction in Yemen controls enough coastal territory to threaten ships passing through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The Houthis have also spent years battling Saudi-backed government forces and another separatist faction supported by the United Arab Emirates for control of Yemen.
Saudi government officials and the state-owned oil and gas company Saudi Aramco have not publicly said anything about potential damage from the latest Houthi strikes. That official silence has forced analysts and even oil traders to turn once again to Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery for possible verification.
Satellite images showed one oil tank at Saudi Aramco’s Jazan oil refinery on fire, Bloomberg News reported. They also showed a flare tower emitting smoke—a sign of the oil refinery burning off excess gas to provide a safety valve for the site’s operations. Saudi Aramco subsequently shut down the oil refinery, which is typically capable of processing 400,000 barrels per day.
Other Sentinel-2 images have shown similar smoke from flare towers at the Abqaiq oil processing plant and Hawiyah gas processing plant that were targeted by the Houthis, according to Bloomberg. Such flaring activity does not necessarily indicate physical damage to the sites from the Houthi strikes.
However, the new Houthi blockade and latest attacks have already led to a 40 percent drop in oil tanker transits through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait when comparing the week of July 20 through 26 to the preceding week, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence. The Houthis are also considering charging fees for safe passage, similar to how Iran has attempted to do so for shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, Reuters reported.
“It’s going to cause more trouble in terms of depleting oil reserves in economies that have already been struggling because of this now five-, six‑month blockade of the Strait of Hormuz,” said Michael Stephens, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, in an interview with Al Jazeera.
Without greater transparency from governments and companies, open source intelligence sources such as verified video evidence and satellite imagery can continue to help evaluate the growing human and economic costs of the war. Copernicus satellite imagery stands out in this regard because it’s a free resource and still uncensored—although the European Union recently agreed to implement a 24-hour delay on releasing new Copernicus images showing shipping lanes near the Strait of Hormuz.
