Courtesy Beth Murphy / Principle Pictuers

A chicken vendor in Kabul, Afghanistan expresses sympathy for Bostonians after the marathon attack.

KABUL – After more than three decades of war, you would think Afghans would be desensitized to violent attacks like the Boston Marathon explosion. A Boston-based documentary filmmaker found just the opposite.

Instead of disregard, she found empathy among Kabul's residents for the three killed and more than 170 injured in the twin bomb blasts at the center of Boston 6,500 miles away. And she has the images to prove it. 

In the wake of the attacks, Beth Murphy awakened Tuesday morning in Afghanistan to a confounding text message from her husband.

"I thought at first I was re-reading my own message to him saying, 'Yes, I'm OK'," said Beth Murphy. She was referring to a text message she had sent her husband about a large-scale Taliban attack in western Afghanistan on April 3 that left more than 40 people dead.

"But it said, 'It's OK, we're safe.' So I did a double-take.

Courtesy Beth Murphy / Principle Pictures

A man with a donkey carriage in Kabul, Afghanistan relates to the victims of violence in Boston.

"I immediately went online before I even got back to him and saw what was happening in Boston, and [got] that overwhelming feeling of helplessness and sadness and feeling so far away. I thought, 'I'd really like to be home right now.'"

Murphy's husband, Dennis, and 5-year-old daughter were fine. But as a runner who had felt the joy and pain of crossing the finish line of the Boston Marathon, she felt compelled to do something.

In an effort to show solidarity with the city she calls home, Murphy set off for her day's work on a documentary project in Kabul armed with a simple sign she made that read: "To Boston From Kabul With Love."

Courtesy Beth Murphy / Principle Pictures

A bookseller in Kabul, Afghanistan expresses sympathy for Bostonians after the violent marathon attack.

Her initial plan was to photograph herself holding the sign and post it online but reactions from Afghans to the unfolding tragedy in Boston prompted a change of plans.

"As I started to talk with people here about what was happening, I saw the expressions on their faces change," she said. "They experience things like this here all the time. You might expect that they'd be desensitized to it or talk about it with a lack of compassion, but it was the exact opposite. There was this shared experience of pain and suffering, and the way people expressed that to me was really beautiful."

Those expressions led Murphy to ask permission to photograph them holding her sign – a spontaneous idea that quickly spread around the world and went viral on the Internet.

Murphy published a series of black and white photos rich with the color of everyday life here: a bookseller crouched before his wares, a chicken vendor with a trio of whole fryer birds hanging over his shoulder, a little girl's largely expressionless face starkly contrasted by those of her shrouded female relatives in the distance.

Courtesy Beth Murphy / Principle Pictures

Beth Murphy, a Boston-based documentary film maker set out on the streets of Kabul after the Boston Marathon attacks with a simple sign that read: "To Boston From Kabul With Love." She was overwhelmed with the expressions of sympathy by Afghans for Bostonians.

And the common thread binding the images and the people in them is a collective nod of empathy for the people of Boston.

"I've been really overwhelmed by the response," Murphy said. "It certainly wasn't anything that I anticipated. I'm happy that the pictures resonated because I think they speak to a common humanity that we all share."

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LONDON -- British authorities ordered more police on the streets for Sunday's London Marathon in the wake of the Boston bombings, but experts warned it was "virtually impossible" to guarantee the safety of the hundreds of thousands who will attend the event. 

A police source said additional patrols by uniformed officers were planned to reassure the public in the wake of deadly attack.

While British security officials have been in contact with their counterparts in the U.S. following Monday's blasts, the U.K.'s threat level for international terrorism hasn't been changed from "substantial" -- the third of five categories on the scale.

At least 500,000 spectators are expected to watch Sunday’s race and Prince Harry is due to hand medals to the winners.

The course takes the 36,000 runners right past major sites - including Tower Bridge, the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace – as well as through Canary Wharf, the giant riverside financial district targeted twice by the Irish militants in the 1990s.

Even in a city that has spent recent decades under the threat of bombs – first from Irish Republicans, more recently jihadists – such a public event poses a security headache.

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police, said that the force was "taking more more precautions than we might have done otherwise."

"We will make sure we've got more officers on the street looking after people, making sure they're kept safe, but we've no reason to think they'd be any less safe than before the terrible events in Boston,." he said. "We'd be professionally irresponsible if we didn't take some reasonable steps."

Sang Tan / AP

Backdropped by Buckingham Palace, a jogger crosses the Mall in London on Tuesday. It will be transformed into the finishing area for Sunday's London Marathon.

Metropolitan Police Commander Christine Jones declined to give details of what changes might be made, if any, to the event's security plan. She said officers would “continue to review all the intelligence” available.

London Marathon chief executive Nick Bitel insisted the event would go ahead. “We will be reviewing our security in the coming days, in the light of what has happened in Boston," Bitel told ITV News.

"I don't want to talk about specifics of what security we have had in the past, or will have on Sunday. All I can say is that it will be of an appropriate level to meet whatever threat assessment is made, in conjunction with the police," he added.

Hugh Robertson, a British government minister, called for crowds and runners to attend in London as normal.

“The very best way to show solidarity with Boston is to get out there on the streets of London to cheer the runners on and to show that we won’t be defeated by this sort of activity,” he told the London Evening Standard newspaper.

Runners will be encouraged to wear a black ribbon at the start of the race to honor victims of the Boston bombing, and a 30-second silence will be observed, organizers said Wednesday. 

NBC News national security analyst Michael Leiter said it was “virtually impossible” to make a marathon completely secure because of its 26.2-mile long route.

“You just have to do the best you can to keep people safe and maintain resilience," he said. “It’s important we don’t alter our lives because that provides the terrorist – domestic, international, whoever it may be – with a huge victory.”

Helmut Spahn, executive director of the International Centre for Sport Security, told Reuters: "There has to be a clear analysis of the situation and certainly no over-reaction. More police, more military is not always the best solution. To have a 100 percent security is very, very difficult if not near impossible.”

Sang Tan / AP

A sign warns of road closures linked to the forthcoming London Marathon.

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 17, 2013 2:29 AM EDT