Amazon online store suffers outage for some users

On Thursday, Amazon's online shopping platform encountered significant issues, impacting numerous users who were unable to complete transactions, access their accounts, or view product prices. The disruptions began around 2 p.m. ET, with over 22,000 reports of problems surfacing on Downdetector, a site dedicated to monitoring outages. An Amazon representative, Jennie Bryant, expressed regret over the situation, stating, "We're sorry that some customers may be experiencing issues while shopping. We appreciate customers' patience as we work to resolve the issue." Additionally, users faced difficulties with Amazon Fresh, the grocery delivery service, where they reported problems with placing orders and checking their purchase history. This outage coincided with recent challenges faced by Amazon Web Services, the company's cloud division, which has been affected by incidents linked to drone strikes that damaged three data centers in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Reports from Iranian state media indicated that one such center in Bahrain was targeted by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps due to Amazon's support of U.S. military and intelligence operations. Nonetheless, Amazon assured customers that its cloud services remained operational on Thursday.