Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has claimed to have targeted the data centre and information infrastructure of American technology company Oracle in the United Arab Emirates, according to a report by Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency. The claim adds Oracle to a growing list of major United States technology companies whose Gulf region assets have been drawn into the widening conflict between Iran and the United States-Israeli military coalition. However, the Dubai Media Office moved quickly to deny the reports, posting a statement on social media describing the circulating accounts as fabricated and incorrect.
According to IRNA, the Revolutionary Guard said the Oracle facility in the UAE was targeted in retaliation for the attack on former Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi and his wife, after Iranian media reported that Kharrazi was seriously injured and his wife was killed in a US-Israeli strike on their home in Tehran on April 1. The claimed retaliation follows a pattern that has been building since the conflict escalated with the launch of the US-Israeli air offensive on February 28, which killed then-Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and a succession of senior Iranian military and political figures in the opening days of the campaign.
The region has been on high alert since the February 28 offensive, which has so far killed over 1,340 people. Iran has retaliated with drone and missile strikes targeting Israel, along with Jordan, Iraq, and Gulf countries hosting US military assets, causing casualties and damage to infrastructure while disrupting global markets and aviation. The targeting of Oracle’s alleged UAE facility, whether confirmed or not, comes days after the IRGC published a formal list of 18 American technology companies it described as legitimate targets, and a day after Amazon Web Services operations in Bahrain were reported to have sustained damage in a separate Iranian strike. The pattern of attacks, real and claimed, is fuelling mounting anxiety among the United States technology companies that have collectively committed tens of billions of dollars to data centre and artificial intelligence infrastructure across the Gulf region in recent years, much of it concentrated in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
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