BRUSSELS - The European Union launches Monday its first-ever naval operation, with six warships and three surveillance planes patrolling pirate infested seas in the Horn of Africa.

The EU vessels face the daunting task of covering an area of around one million square kilometres, in waters that have seen nearly 100 ships attacked by pirates this year.

And the mission's ability to serve any meaningful purpose - beyond a deterrant role - remains under a cloud, with critics saying the only way to beat piracy is to start the battle on land, in lawless Somalia.

For a year, vessels from at least eight countries - Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden - will escort aid ships and carry out anti-piracy duties under British Admiral Phillip Jones.

With a headquarters in Northwood near London, the fleet will initially be led off the coast of Somalia by Greek Admiral Antonios Popaioannou, with a Spaniard and then a Dutch officer taking over after three month terms.

While the EUNAVFOR Atalanta mission officially starts Monday - taking over from four NATO vessels in the waters - it is unlikely to be up to full strength before the end of the month.

"We have responsibility there to escort, and to deter, and to protect, and those things are going to be done with very robust rules of engagement," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Wednesday, at NATO headquarters.

Those rules of engagement will be endorsed by EU foreign ministers at a meeting in Brussels Monday.

The challenge is formidable.

More than a dozen foreign merchant vessels and their crew are currently being held by gunmen in the area where the northeast tip of the Somali coast juts into the Indian Ocean.

The pirates, heavily armed and using high-powered speedboats, prey there on a key maritime route leading to the Suez Canal through which an estimated 30 percent of the world's oil transits.

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