Munthiriya - Hundreds of Iraqi prisoners of war returned home to a heroes' welcome yesterday, 12 years after the end of the eight-year war between the two oil-rich Gulf neighbours. The exhausted POWs made their way on foot from Iranian buses to the Iraqi border post of Munthiriya, 180 km east of Baghdad. The freed men brought to 2,479 the number of Iraqi POWs released by Iran in less than a month.