The iconic AP photo from WWII, which an Iranian photographer doctored to convey an anti-American message. Photo: Wikipedia.

A billboard in Iran was adorned on Wednesday with a clear anti-American message through an artistic recreation of an iconic historical photograph, Iran’s semi-official state news agency Fars reported on Thursday.

According to the report, a doctored version of the famous photograph of US Marines raising the American flag on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima after its capture in World War II, was hung in Tehran’s Vali-e asr Square.

The original image, shot in 1945 by Pulitzer Prize winning Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal, was called “Raising the Flag at Iwo Jima.”

The Iranian version, titled “Story of a Flag,” shows US Marines with blood-stained hands raising an American flag over a pile of corpses and rubble. Fars gave it the following caption: “The US  is killing thousands of people from different nations, ethnicity (sic), races and religions to impose its hegemony over the Middle East.”

The image, created by Iranian photographer/filmmaker Seyed Ehsan Bagheri, was placed on the billboard as part of the commemoration of “National Day of Fight Against Global Arrogance,” a celebration of the November 4, 1979 takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran.