Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday that the U.S. military should strike Syrian President Bashar Assads air force in response to this weeks chemical attack that killed more than 70 civilians .

Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee, said at the Women in the World summit in New York City that a retaliatory strike would prevent Assad from carrying out similar attacks in the future.

Assad has an air force, and that air force is the cause of most of these civilian deaths as we have seen over the years and as we saw again in the last few days, Clinton said. And I really believe that we should have and still should take out his air fields and prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people and drop sarin gas on them.

U.S. officials believe Assads regime is responsible for Tuesdays sarin gas attack on the opposition-held town of Khan Skeikhoun.

Hours after Clintons remarks, the U.S. began striking targets in Syria .