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BEIRUT (AP) — Nearly 93,000 people have been confirmed killed in Syria since an uprising against President Bashar Assad began more than two years ago, the U.N. said Thursday, a sharp rise in the death toll as the fighting turns increasingly sectarian and the carnage gripping the country appears unstoppable.

The grim benchmark came as Assad's regime has scored a series of battlefield successes against the rebels seeking his ouster and international efforts to forge a round of peace talks have stalled. After regaining control of the strategic town of Qusair near the border with Lebanon, regime forces appear set on securing control of the central provinces of Homs and Hama, a linchpin area linking Damascus with regime strongholds on the Mediterranean coast, and Aleppo to the north.

In continued violence, a mortar round slammed into an area near the runway at the Damascus International Airport Thursday, briefly disrupting flights to and from the Syrian capital, officials said, a few weeks after the government announced it had secured the airport road that had been targeted by rebels in the past.

It was the first known attack to hit inside the airport, located south of the capital.

The country's transportation minister Mahmoud Ibrahim Said told Syrian TV that a mortar round fired by "terrorists" struck near a warehouse, breaking its windows and wounding a worker there.

He said the attack delayed the landing of two incoming flights, from Latakia and Kuwait, as well as the takeoff of a Syrian flight to Baghdad. No passengers were harmed and no planes were damaged, he said. The regime refers to rebels as "terrorists."

Tarek Wahibi, head of operations at the airport, said takeoff and landing then resumed normally.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebel fighters had targeted the airport with homemade rockets.

Rebels also battled regime forces for control of a key military base in the central Hama province after chasing soldiers out and setting fire to installations there, activists said.

Following dawn battles, rebels took control of the base on the northern edge of the town of Morek, which straddles the country's strategic north-south highway leading to Aleppo.

By midday, regime forces shelled the base and sent reinforcements in an apparent attempt to regain control of the area, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Observatory, which has a vast network of Syrian activists on the ground, said the rebels killed six government fighters and seized ammunition and weapons. Two rebel fighters were killed.

An amateur video posted on Hama activists' Facebook page showed flames rising from the burning compound and the bodies of some of the killed fighters. In the video, fighters celebrated the capturing of the base, calling it one of the "most critical" regime outposts in the region.

State-run TV reported Thursday that troops have secured four towns in the central province of Hama after killing 60 members of al-Qaida-linked group Jabhat al-Nusra. It said the towns included Masaadah, Abu Hanaya and Abu Jbeilat.

Meanwhile in Geneva, the U.N. human rights office said it had documented 92,901 killings in Syria between March 2011 and the end of April 2013. But the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, said it was impossible to provide an exact number, which could be far higher.

The figure was up from nearly 60,000 through the end of November, recorded in an analysis released in January. Since then, U.N. officials had estimated higher numbers, most recently 80,000. The latest report adds more confirmed killings to the previous time period and an additional 27,000 between December and April.

The conflict in Syria began in March 2011 as largely peaceful protests against Assad's autocratic regime. After a relentless government crackdown on the protests, many Syrians took up arms against the regime, and the uprising descended into civil war.

The figures trace the arc of violence, with the average monthly number of documented killings rising from around 1,000 per month in the summer of 2011 to an average of more than 5,000 per month since last July. At its height from July to October 2012, the number of killings rose above 6,000 per month.

"The constant flow of killings continues at shockingly high levels," Pillay said. "This is most likely a minimum casualty figure. The true number of those killed is potentially much higher."

Among the victims were at least 6,561 children, including 1,729 children younger than 10.

"There are also well-documented cases of individual children being tortured and executed, and entire families including babies being massacred — which, along with this devastatingly high death toll, is a terrible reminder of just how vicious this conflict has become," Pillay said.

Her office commissioned San Francisco-based nonprofit Human Rights Data Analysis Group to study eight data sets provided by various groups containing 263,000 reported killings. Those lacking a name, date and location of death were excluded, and some duplicates were found.

"Civilians are bearing the brunt of widespread, violent and often indiscriminate attacks which are devastating whole swaths of major towns and cities, as well as outlying villages," Pillay said.

"Government forces are shelling and launching aerial attacks on urban areas day in and day out," she said. "Opposition forces have also shelled residential areas, albeit using less firepower, and there have been multiple bombings resulting in casualties in the heart of cities, especially Damascus."

The vast majority of the victims are male. Three-quarters of the reported killings do not indicate the victim's age, and the analysis did not differentiate between fighters and noncombatants.

The most documented killings were in rural areas surrounding Damascus, with 17,800 people dead. Next was Homs, with 16,400; Aleppo, with 11,900; and Idlib, with 10,300.

___ Heilprin reported from Geneva. ___ Online: Full report: http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/SY/HRDAG-Updated-SY-report.pdf

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — On the eve of Iran's presidential elections, a former Iranian president blocked from a comeback bid urged voters Thursday not to boycott the vote in protest over crackdowns on dissent or in anger over his exclusion from the race.

The appeal by former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani came in response to persistent calls by many among reform-minded voters to stay away from Friday's election, despite the apparent rising profile of moderate candidate Hasan Rowhani, a former nuclear negotiator.

The boycott drive seeks to mount a symbolic rebuke to Iran's ruling system after years of arrests and pressures against opposition forces since the disputed re-election in 2009 of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran's constitution bars Ahmadinejad from running for a third consecutive term, though he could run in the future.

But a significant snub of the voting would most likely hurt Rowhani, who has been backed by his close ally Rafsanjani and other reformist leaders. His other rivals include hardliners or conservatives seen as favored by the ruling theocracy.

Rafsanjani's stature rose sharply with liberals after he criticized hard-line tactics used in the unprecedented postelection clashes and demonstrations four years ago. Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who challenged Ahmadinejad in the 2009 election, and another reform-leaning candidate, Mahdi Karroubi, have been under house arrest for more than two years.

Reports Thursday by several pro-reform newspapers, including the Etemad daily, quoted Rafsanjani as saying that people "should not boycott" the vote.

"I urge them to vote," he was quoted as saying.

On Wednesday, thousands of supporters welcomed Rowhani in the northeastern city of Mashhad chanting: "Long live reforms."

They also urged for a strong turnout under the phrase of "one for 100" — meaning every reformist should try to encourage 100 people to the polls.

Iranians traditionally have shown high interest in voting. The average reported turnout in the past 10 presidential election is more than 67 percent.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has repeatedly called for a high turnout as a reply to Western governments that have strongly questioned the openness of Iran's elections — including the process of vetting candidates, which dropped Rafsanjani and other perceived moderates.

But Khamenei went further in his appeal on Wednesday, when he equated voting to a patriotic act for voters, even if they don't want to support the Islamic establishment.

"It is possible that some do not want to support the Islamic Republic while seeking to support their own country. They should vote, too," said Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters. He added that a high turnout would "frustrate the enemy."

"When the enemy faces frustration, it will lose its efficiency," he said.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A 10-year-old girl with cystic fibrosis was recovering from a transplant of adult lungs after a judge's ruling expanded her options for lifesaving surgery.

Sarah Murnaghan underwent a six-hour surgery Wednesday at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, a procedure her aunt said resulted because of the larger list of available organs.

"It was a direct result of the ruling that allowed her to be put on the adult list," Sharon Ruddock said after her niece's surgery was completed successfully. "It was not pediatric lungs. She would have never gotten these lungs otherwise."

She said the donor lungs came through "normal channels" and not through the public appeals the family made in its bid to find a compatible donor. No other details about the donor lungs are known.

The Murnaghan family's quest to qualify their daughter for an organ transplant spurred public debate over how donor organs are allocated.

Her family and the family of another cystic fibrosis patient at the same hospital challenged existing transplant policy that made children under 12 wait for pediatric lungs to become available, or be offered lungs donated by adults only after adolescents and adults on the waiting list had been considered. They said pediatric lungs are rarely donated.

Sarah's health was fading when U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson in Philadelphia ruled June 5 that Sarah and 11-year-old Javier Acosta of New York City should be eligible for adult lungs.

Critics warned there could be a downside to having judges intervene in the organ transplant system's allocation policy. Lung transplants are difficult procedures and some say child patients tend to have more trouble with them than adults.

During double lung transplants, surgeons must open up the patient's chest. Complications can include rejection of the new lung and infection.

"Her doctors are very pleased with both her progress during the procedure and her prognosis for recovery," the family said in a statement. "The surgeons had no challenges resizing and transplanting the donor lungs - the surgery went smoothly, and Sarah did extremely well. She is in the process of getting settled in the ICU and now her recovery begins. We expect it will be a long road, but we're not going for easy, we're going for possible."

Ruddock said the family was optimistic about Sarah's recovery.

"If everything goes perfectly, she could be out in a couple of weeks, running down the hall," Ruddock said. "It could take a couple of months, it could take three weeks."

The Murnaghan family noted that Sarah's successful surgery was the result of another family's loss:

"We are elated this day has come, but we also know our good news is another family's tragedy. That family made the decision to give Sarah the gift of life - and they are the true heroes today."

On Wednesday, in a posting on her Facebook page, Janet Murnaghan said she and the family were "overwhelmed with emotions" and thanked all her supporters. She said the donor's family "has experienced a tremendous loss, may God grant them a peace that surpasses understanding."

Ruddock said Sarah doesn't yet know the full extent of the impact her case has had.

"She really wanted to Google herself the other day and we were like, no."

The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network - the national organization that manages organ transplants - added Sarah to the adult waiting list after Baylson's ruling. Her transplant came just two days before a hearing was scheduled on the family's request for a broader injunction.

The network has said 31 children under age 11 are on the waiting list for a lung transplant. Its executive committee held an emergency meeting this week but resisted making emergency rule changes for children under 12 who are waiting for lungs, instead creating a special appeal and review system to hear such cases.

Murnaghan's family "did have a legitimate complaint" about the rule that limited her access to adult lungs, said medical ethicist Arthur Caplan of the NYU Langone Medical Center in New York.

"When the transplant community met, they didn't want to change that rule without really thinking carefully about it," he said. The appeals process that was established this week was "built on evidence, not on influence."

He added: "In general, the road to a transplant is still to let the system decide who will do best with scarce, lifesaving organs. And it's important that people understand that money, visibility, being photogenic ... are factors that have to be kept to a minimum if we're going to get the best use out of the scarce supply of donated cadaver organs."

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Ritter, an AP science writer, reported from New York. Associated Press Writer Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia also contributed to this report.

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