Iran Strikes Kuwait Refinery, UAE Data Centres on War Day 35
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- Kuwait's Al-Ahmadi oil refinery — one of the Middle East's biggest — was hit by drone strikes for the third time on Friday, causing fires in operational units but no employee injuries, while a separate strike hit a power and desalination plant whose extent of damage was not disclosed.
- Iran's IRGC denied responsibility for the desalination strike, blamed Israel in a Telegram statement, and threatened 'American bases and military in the region' and Israeli centers in the occupied Palestinian territories as targets.
- The UAE reported 12 people injured (7 Nepalese, 5 Indian) in Abu Dhabi's Ajban area from debris during missile interceptions, and a fire at the Habshan gas facility forced operations to be suspended; UAE air defences intercepted 19 ballistic missiles and 26 drones on Thursday alone.
- Iran claimed via state-run IRNA it targeted an Oracle data centre in Dubai in retaliation for an April 1 strike that killed former Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi's wife; the Dubai Media Office called the report 'fake news.'
- Amazon Web Services confirmed two of its UAE data centres were 'directly struck' and a third in Bahrain was damaged by a nearby drone strike, with only localized and limited server disruption per the Associated Press.
- Kuwait's Crown Prince Sheikh Sabah Khaled and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer discussed deploying a British ground-based air defence system in Kuwait, state news agency KUNA reported.
- Iran's army spokesperson Ebrahim Zolfaghari warned of attacks on regional power plants and US-shareholder energy and telecom companies if US strikes on Iranian power infrastructure continue, a threat echoed in Iran's prior warnings to hit Gulf-based US tech firms.
Why it matters: Kuwait and the Gulf depend heavily on desalinated water, and this desalination plant strike follows a March 30 attack that killed an Indian worker. Iran is expanding from military to civilian and economic targets — Oracle and AWS data centres, gas processing, oil refineries — which is why the UK is now moving toward deploying ground-based air defence to Kuwait, signaling the war is pulling in outside powers to defend Gulf infrastructure.
