Afghanistan's constitutional convention began voting yesterday on issues including regional autonomy and women's place in politics, the first showdown at the marathon meeting that has been marred by acrimony and a dangerous ethnic rift.

　　But hopes that the country's first post-Taliban charter could soon be ratified suffered an immediate setback, as opponents of US-backed President Hamid Karzai's plans for a strong presidency boycotted the ballot.

　　The 502-member grand council, or loya jirga, has spent well over two weeks feuding over the charter in a huge tent on a Kabul college campus.

　　Having failed to broker a consensus among the country's fractious ethnic groups, council leaders read out a list of proposed amendments yesterday morning, and urged the delegates to finally make some decisions.

　　"We've had enough speeches," said council chairman Sibghatullah Mujaddedi. "Let's start voting."

　　Some delegates quickly followed the call, lining up to place their ballots in one of ten boxes decorated with the black, green and red of the Afghan flag.

　　But some 200 remained rooted to their chairs. Officials have said a simple majority will suffice to pass disputed articles, but have spent hours in closed-door meetings trying to avoid a damaging split over the foundations of the new state.

　　Leaders including one of Karzai's deputies, Karim Khalili, an ethnic Hazara faction leader, pleaded with delegates to take part, but he was shouted down.

　　Mahsa Toyie, a Tajik delegate from Herat, accused the government of trying to impose an unfair draft on small minorities.

　　Meanwhile, US troops and helicopters have killed as many as 14 insurgents in clashes in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, the military said yesterday.

　　Three US soldiers were wounded in the battle on Wednesday some 20 kilometers northeast of Shkin, a town in Paktika province near the Pakistan border.

　　The first three militants were killed in a gunbattle after a small group of insurgents fired on a US patrol, spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Hilferty said.

　　The same patrol later found the insurgents, and AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters flying in support inflicted several more casualties, Hilferty said.

　　"We don't know for sure, but we think 11," he said. "It was getting night and we didn't go to see the bodies."

　　One of the wounded American soldiers was evacuated and is in a stable condition, Hilferty said. The other two immediately returned to duty.

　　Suspected Taliban and al-Qaida militants regularly attack US and allied Afghan forces as well as government and aid workers in a broad swath of southern and eastern Afghanistan along the rugged Pakistani frontier.

　　The US military, which still has more than 11,000 troops in Afghanistan, says it killed 10 militants and detained more than 100 people in a four-week operation in the border regions called Avalanche which ended on Monday.