Washington ? The Pentagon is rushing to Iraq a new device that creates a “virtual microphone” in the air to help detect the origin of sniper gunfire.

Tony Tether, director of the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency, said Wednesday that the Pentagon also would use in Iraq a new electronic-detection device that could help pinpoint cell phones or pagers, which sometimes are used to detonate homemade bombs aimed at U.S. troops.

“They’re not going to be 100 percent solutions,” he said, but if they help even a little bit they may slow the anti-American resistance in Iraq.