The UN Security Council travels to Mali and Burkina Faso this week for an up-close look at the worrisome Sahel region, where a jihadist insurgency is showing no signs of weakening and is driving mass displacement. Led by France, Germany and Ivory Coast, the visit will be the council’s fourth to Mali since 2014 and second to Burkina Faso, and comes as the council is considering the future of the large peacekeeping force in Mali. World powers have been divided over how to confront the Islamist threat in the Sahel, with France at odds with the United States over UN funding for a five-nation regional force battling jihadists. Another Franco-US showdown is looming over the fate of MINUSMA, the 14,000-strong peacekeeping force set up in 2013 after the jihadist takeover of northern Mali was beaten back, diplomats say. The council faces a June deadline to decide on the mandate of MINUSMA and a key meeting is scheduled on March 29 to discuss the way forward. After it intervened militarily to drive out Al-Qaeda-linked extremists from northern Mali in 2013, France kept 2,700 troops in the region and has enlisted the United Nations in an effort to shore up the Bamako government. A peace deal was signed between Bamako and some armed groups in 2015, but large areas of Mali remain out of government control, despite the push to isolate the Islamists. French Ambassador Francois Delattre said the visit will “help expand the information of council members on the peace process in Mali, the surge of the G-5 Sahel force and the situation in Burkina Faso, which faces a security threat.” France has hinted that it could once again ask the council to approve direct UN funding for the G5 force after the United States firmly rejected that proposal last year.