By Sa’ad Abdel Majid, IOL Correspondent

ISTANBUL, October 19 (IslamOnline.net) – With the advent of Ramadan, a Turkish relief organization has launched charity projects in the Turkoman-populated areas in northern Iraq to counter rising missionary work there.

Turkey and Mideast Waqf for Relief is raising funds and collecting donations from Turkish people, including food stuffs and medicines, to be transferred to the northern Iraqi cities of Tal Afar, Kirkuk , and even heavily battered towns like Fallujah and Ramadi.

Waqf director Ahmet Betali warned that Jewish and Christian missionaries have been on the rise in northern Iraq since 1991.

Betali, in statements to IslamOnline.net Sunday, October 17, said Jewish organizations under the guise of business and aid work have opened 13 offices in the city of Zakhow , Arbil and now has Baghdad on their agenda.

“They are playing on the country’s social and economic woes and people’s hunger to convert as much as they can by distributing gospels, fliers, books, CDs and jackets imprinted with crucifixes.”

He urged the Muslim world to support his organization to “turn off the blooming proselytizing in northern Iraq .”

“I will embark on a multi-leg Gulf tour, chiefly to Saudi Arabia , United Arab Emirates and Kuwait , to raise funds for the poor in northern Iraq .”

He further said the organization can reach out to the less-fortunate and needy Muslims of the world.

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“They are playing on the country’s social and economic woes and people’s hanger,” warned Betali.

The Waqf was established by six Iraqi youths in Istanbul two years after the United Nations slapped its crippling sanctions on the Iraqi people in 1991 to provide for the needy and the poor in Iraq .

Aid convoys, however, started flocking to northern Iraq , independent from the regime of Saddam Hussein, in 1996.

“We were traveling along latitude 36 degrees, which was controlled by multi-national forces in accordance to the United Nations Security Council,” Betali said.

British reports revealed in December 2003 that US missionaries, mainly evangelicals, were pouring into the predominantly Muslim Iraq , shrouded in secrecy and under the cover of humanitarian aid.

The US military announced last March that four US missionaries had been killed in a drive-by shooting in Mosul.