By Warren Strobel WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Saddled with Middle East problems ranging from Iran to Syria and beyond, President Barack Obama now faces one that is both old and new: Iraq. Unresolved sectarian tensions, inflamed by the raging civil war in neighboring Syria, have combined to send violence in Iraq to its highest level since Obama withdrew the last U.S. troops in December 2011, U.S. officials and Middle East analysts say. A Sunni Muslim insurgency against the Shi'ite-led Baghdad government has also been reawakened. ...

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis ISTANBUL - Syrian opposition talks aimed at presenting a coherent front at an international peace conference to end the civil war faced the prospect of collapse after President Bashar al-Assad's foes failed to cut an internal deal, opposition sources said on Friday. ...

BEIRUT (AP) — Syria's government has agreed to attend a U.S.-Russian-brokered peace conference, according to Moscow. While this development might seem at first glance to be a step toward ending the civil war, strong skepticism persists on both sides.

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Syria's fractious opposition scrambled to agree a new leadership on Friday in a bid to present a coherent front at peace talks which the United States and Russia are convening to seek an end to more than two years of civil war. A major assault by President Bashar al-Assad's forces on a rebel held town over the past week is shaping into a pivotal battle. It has drawn in fighters from Assad's Lebanese allies Hezbollah, justifying fears that a war that has killed 80,000 people would cross borders at the heart of the Middle East. ...

By Arshad Mohammed TEL AVIV (Reuters) - The United States on Friday called into question the credibility of Iran's presidential election next month, criticizing the disqualification of candidates and accusing Tehran of disrupting Internet access. On a visit to Israel, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry also warned that time was running out to resolve the deadlock over Iran's contested nuclear program. ...

A senior American official on Friday praised India for reducing oil imports from Iran and said the U.S. government will decide soon on New Delhi's request to renew a waiver from sanctions on Tehran. U.S. ...

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's prime minister says a new report by the U.N. atomic agency shows that international pressure is having no effect on halting Iran's suspect nuclear program.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Banned from upcoming elections, Iran's former president has leveled harsh criticism at the Islamic Republic's clerical rulers, saying they are doing a poor job running the country, an Iranian pro-reform website reported late on Wednesday.

JERUSALEM (AP) — The United States and Israel raised hopes Thursday for a restart of the Middle East peace process, despite little tangible progress so far from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's two-month-old effort to get Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran denied on Thursday that one of its drones had violated the airspace of Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, Iranian media reported. Bahrain's Information Minister Samira Rajab told Reuters on Thursday that an unmanned spy drone was found in the Gulf waters between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The incident could further inflame tensions between the two countries. In a report carried by Iran's official IRNA news agency, an unnamed official at the Foreign Ministry denied an Iranian drone had violated the Gulf kingdom's airspace, without giving further details. ...