Iran flags Google, Microsoft, Oracle and others as potential military targets —Report

Iran has declared several major US technology companies as potential military targets, marking a dramatic escalation in a modern conflict that is increasingly intersecting with the global technology infrastructure.

According to reports cited by Al Jazeera on Friday, Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) made the announcement following military strikes carried out by US and Israeli forces against Iranian targets. The decision was reportedly taken after an attack on an Iranian bank allegedly killed several civilian employees.

In response, Iranian officials said financial and technological institutions linked to the US and Israel could now be considered legitimate targets as the conflict expands beyond traditional battlefields.

“As the scope of regional wars expands to infrastructure wars, so does the scope of Iran’s legitimate targets,” the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News Agency said in a statement.

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A document reviewed by Al Jazeera reportedly lists several major US technology companies, including Google, Microsoft, Palantir, IBM, Nvidia and Oracle, as part of what Iran describes as “new targets”.

The list also includes cloud computing facilities located in Israel and several Gulf countries.

A spokesman for Khatam al-Anbiya Headquarters, the IRGC’s unified combat command, warned that the United States would face retaliation.

“America must wait for countermeasures and a painful response from us,” the spokesman said.

The move reflects the increasing role of private technology companies in modern military operations. Many large technology companies provide governments with cloud infrastructure, artificial intelligence tools, surveillance systems, and advanced computing capabilities that are increasingly integrated into national defense systems.

The announcement also follows reports that recent Iranian drone attacks caused structural damage to three Amazon Web Services (AWS) facilities in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, incidents believed to mark one of the first known attacks on a company’s technology infrastructure linked to US interests.