The USAF 122nd Fighter Wing revealed it would deploy to the Middle East on October 2014 with 12 of the unit 's 21 A-10 aircraft . Although the deployment had been planned a year in advance in a support role , the timing coincided with the ongoing Operation Inherent Resolve against ISIL militants . From mid-November , U.S. commanders began sending A-10s to hit IS targets in central and northwestern Iraq on an almost daily basis . In about two months time , A-10s flew 11 percent of all USAF sorties since the start of operations in August 2014 . On 15 November 2015 , two days after the ISIL attacks in Paris , A-10s and AC-130s destroyed a convoy of over 100 ISIL-operated oil tanker trucks in Syria . The attacks were part of an intensification of the U.S.-led intervention against ISIL called Operation Tidal Wave II ( named after Operation Tidal Wave during World War II , a failed attempt to raid German oil fields ) in an attempt to cut off oil smuggling as a source of funding for the group
ISIL attacks in Paris
November 2015 Paris attacks
Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II