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Blue-Robed Troops. The real threat to Hassan's crusade was not Spain but neighboring Algeria, which does not want Morocco's right-wing monarchy to have the phosphate-rich Saharan property. An Algerian-backed leftist movement in the territory, called Frente Polisario (People's Front for the Liberation of the Western Sahara), said it would oppose the marchers, by force if necessary. Morocco claimed that Algiers had sent 2,000 of its own troops, disguised as blue-robed nomads, to back up the Polisario 's threat. Meanwhile, both Algeria and Morocco reportedly had troops positioned along their southern borders, ready to go to war. Spain insisted that its soldiers would not fire on the crusaders—but it also noted that there are minefields, planted by both the Spanish and Moroccan armies, along the Sahara frontier.
At week's end there were some signs that Hassan's gambit might be producing results. U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim flew to the region to see what he could accomplish, and the Spanish Government announced that it would propose to transfer sovereignty of the Sahara, presumably to Morocco. Thus the invasion was temporarily held up, and the Moroccan marchers waited at the frontier, uncertain whether they would walk across or return.