London (CNN) -- Despite Turkey's shelling of Syria, Middle East expert Fawaz Gerges says neither side wants an escalation of a conflict that has the potential to spill over into a regional war that would be extremely difficult to end. It is important to stress at the outset that we do not know if the shells that landed on Turkish border towns, killing at least five people, were ordered by Bashar al-Assad's government; all we know is the shelling came from the area where Syrian positions had been firing at rebels. Syria has admitted its shelling killed Turkish civilians, has apologized, and has promised that the incident will not be repeated, Turkey's deputy prime minister says. Syria's information minister has pledged an investigation into how and why the shell came to be fired at Turkey.Syrian shells hit towns across the border in Turkey, killing at least fiveSyria apologizes for incident, says it will not be repeatedFawaz Gerges says neither side wants Syria's civil war to spread across region
The big point is that the Assad regime is desperately trying to prevent outside military intervention in its war-torn country, and does not want to provide a pretext for _ to do so, knowing that it would be disastrous.