We are in a balancing act over there, made difficult by Malaki's relying on Sadr as part of his own coalition. I don't know how much of Malaki's positions are sincere, and how much is playing to the electorate. Nobody's going to lose votes in Iraq by standing up to the Americans.

What happens in these cases is that military operations have to move into an "unofficial" status. U.S. and Iraqi forces have been prying Mahdi forces out of peripheral areas for some time now, keeping a very low profile.

The missing soldier is apparently, against regulations, married to a local Iraqi. More info here.

This is a little more complicated than a simple missing soldier. Iraqi translators are also specifically targeted quite often by the enemy, so this doesn't look good.