loading . . . Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claims it has targeted an Oracle data center in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, according to Iranian state media.
The alleged strike comes only two days after Iran threatened to begin striking American tech giants it deemed to be assisting American and Israeli military operations. In a list reported widely by Iranian state media, Oracle was explicitly named. Other companies on the list include Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, HP, Tesla, Nvidia, Boeing, IBM, and Cisco.
Oracle has ongoing cloud and AI partnerships with the Department of Defense. The tech giant’s billionaire founder and chairman Larry Ellison also has strong ties to the Israeli government.
UAE’s Ministry of Interior shared on X that the nation’s air defenses had engaged 5 ballistic missiles and 35 drones originating from Iran on Wednesday, April 1, and 19 ballistic missiles and 26 drones on Thursday, April 2. The Iranian state media reports do not specify when the alleged attack occurred, and Emirati forces have yet to independently confirm any successful strike on Dubai.
That doesn’t necessarily mean there have been no strikes. A Bellingcat investigation published on Thursday claimed that in the past month, the UAE has “downplayed damage, mischaracterised interceptions and in some instances not acknowledged successful Iranian drone strikes on the country.”
Oracle did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The IRGC also said its forces had targeted an Amazon facility in Bahrain. Though no damage was reported on Thursday, the Bahrain Ministry of Interior did report dealing with a fire in “a facility of a company as a result of the Iranian aggression,” in a statement posted to X on Wednesday morning. Amazon’s cloud services division AWS did not confirm if it was its facilities in the Gulf nation that were hit, but an anonymously-sourced Financial Times report from Wednesday identified it as such.
The war has been devastating the broader region for 34 days. The Human Rights Activists News Agency estimates 1,606 civilian fatalities in Iran alone, including at least 244 children. Along with Iran, Israeli forces have also been striking Lebanon, where local officials report a death toll of 1,345 people.
In a televised address to the nation on Wednesday night, Trump threatened to strike Iranian infrastructure, and on Thursday, he celebrated the destruction of a bridge, claiming there would be “Much more to follow!” In his speech on Wednesday night, the President also vowed to take Iran “back to the Stone Ages” over the next two to three weeks. Trump has recently suggested that American military strikes will cease within the next two to three weeks as negotiations allegedly continue, but Iranian officials have denied most of his claims. https://gizmodo.com/iran-says-it-hit-oracle-facilities-in-uae-2000741785
