Whats the Flash equivalent to load URL?

Basically what I have is a url that PHP will run if you call get_headers(). I’m looking for a similar command in Flash. I’ve tried load(), and send(). load() says retrieving but it doesn’t seem to work. send() works but it always opens a new window when it shouldn’t.

Let’s say I want to increase a counter with a url, say for example:
http://domain.com/counter.php?act=count&method=increase

I would need Flash to run that URL in the background. Can that be done?

Thanks in advance