Wali and his family lived a regular life in Kurdistan until they became targets of Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime, facing much persecution. During the Anfal campaign, a genocide of Kurds in Northern Iraq from 1986 to 1989, Wali was imprisoned and tortured. His family, like that of other Kurds, faced great sorrow. Wali is a naturalized U.S. Citizen, having immigrated to the United States in the late 1990s and settled in Texas by 1997. His greatest desire is to see Kurdistan become whole again.