Balad. Is this where Sadr loses control?

As the violence in Balad continues, Sadr is ordering an end to the violent "displacements."

How does this resolve when Sadr's militia was called in specifically by the local authorities through a Baghdad office?

Generally, I've been discounting the claims that Sadr is losing control of his militia figuring that the distance between rhetoric and action was an artefact of Sadr's "double game" of politics and violence, but maybe not.

As dangerous as Sadr has been controlling the Mahdi army, I find myself terrified at the prospect of a loss of his control. For whatever else, he offered a central point for negotiations and pressure. A Sadr in control at least offered the possibility of a tamping down of the violence.

But if the Mahdi has shattered into rogue elements, no longer driven by an organizing "religious" force but instead by localized bloodletting hatred, there is no resolution.

(Interestingly, his fall from influence somewhat echoes Sistani's. Forced by his political needs to try to pull back the violence, he lost the front edge elements. The question is, will another unifying influence come in to gather those elements, and how violent will he have to be? Preaching peace is not popular. )

Related:

“People are bewildered because of the weak response by the Americans,” said one Balad resident who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals. “They used to patrol the city every day, but when the violence started, we didn’t see any sign of them.”.....

American military commanders reviewing what happened over the weekend concluded that the situation in Balad was best dealt with by the Iraqi armed forces, a senior American military official said.