Al-Akhbar, Oct. 1, 2015

"Toward a new Middle East," reads the front page of the Thursday edition of Lebanon's Arabic-language daily Al-Akhbar, together with a picture of a Russian aircraft ready for take-off, as Moscow hits targets in Syria for a second day.

On Wednesday, Moscow launched a series of airstrikes against what it said were Islamist extremist positions inside Syria. According to Lebanon's al-Mayadeen TV, quoted by BBC News, a series of new strikes took place Thursday, targeting rebel positions in the northwest held by an alliance known as the Army of Conquest.

The Russian intervention in the Syrian conflict has elicited anger from American officials who are accusing Moscow of aiming at western-backed rebels in the region — not ISIS fighters, as it claims. For The New York Times, the country's entry in the war is an effort to help Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whom Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed to support.