Thousands of commuters in New York City were greeted with a free copy of what appeared to be the New York Times on Wednesday morning, only to find it dated 04 July 2009 and bearing the headline ‘IRAQ WAR ENDS’.

Fronting a photograph of Apache helicopters in flight, the spoof newspaper carried articles ‘reporting’ the indictment of President Bush for high treason, the nationalisation of major oil companies and the introduction of a maximum wage.

The bona fide New York Times notes that an anonymous email statement was circulated to the news media regarding the spoof and included claims that it had taken six months in preparation and had achieved a distribution figure of 1.2 million. The latter is dubious to say the least, given that it’s greater than the real newspaper’s own figures.

The Guardian reports that a group of leftwing activists called the Yes Men were responsible for the distribution of the fake NYT, while it had been funded by a number of wealthy donors and written by journalists from a variety of New York newspapers.

The photographs used in the publication, however, appear to be genuine and featured legitimately, having apparently been sourced either from the photographic skills of the pranksters themselves or through free distribution from various organisations.

You can view a website for the elaborately conceived spoof here – complete with fake adverts for many global companies.