The European Union sharply condemned Thursday's two powerful blasts in Damascus, describing the attacks as "an act of pure terrorism."

"We strongly condemn the twin bomb attacks," said Michael Mann, spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

President Michel Suleiman telephoned on Thursday his Syrian counterpart Bashar Assad to condemn the twin Damascus explosions that took place earlier in the day.

He told Assad: “Bombings that have cost the lives of several civilians are not the proper way to achieve democracy.”

Authorities are tracking down a Lebanese man who is allegedly playing a critical role in smuggling arms to the Syria opposition, al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Thursday.

According to the daily, the Lebanese authorities informed the Syrian authorities about the preliminary investigations regarding the Lebanese navy’s interception of weapons aboard the Sierra Leone-flagged Lutfallah II ship.

Twin suicide bombings killed at least 55 people and wounded nearly 400 in the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday, authorities said, in the deadliest attacks of the country's 14-month uprising.

The government and the opposition traded blame, with Syria's foreign ministry, in a letter to U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon hours after the attacks, saying they were the work of "terrorists" armed and funded by foreign organizations and media.

The head of the Lebanese-Syrian Higher Council Nasri Khoury relayed a message from the Syrian leadership that it is time for Syrian refugees in Lebanon to be returned to their country, reported the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat on Thursday.

He explained that calm has been restored to Syria after international monitors entered the country and the United Nations and Arab League ceasefire plan has been implemented.

Syrian troops crossed over into Lebanon Wednesday night and kidnapped a Lebanese citizen, reported the daily al-Mustaqbal on Thursday.

It said that Syrian border guards crossed the Kabir River near the town of al-Abboudiyeh in Akkar and abducted Mohammed Mahmoud Ibrahim.

The opposition Syrian National Council has signed a partnership deal with Miami-based opponents of Cuba's communist regime, which both sides said was aimed at fighting dictatorship in their countries.

The agreement was signed on Tuesday at a Miami hotel, officials said, noting that it constituted the creation of a united front and an exchange of ideas to boost democracy and respect for individual freedoms in Syria and Cuba.

Bomb attacks like the one near a U.N. convoy in Syria on Wednesday cast doubt on the future of the ceasefire monitoring mission in the country, U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon said.

There was no immediate evidence that U.N. monitors in the convoy were the target of Wednesday's attack, Ban said through a spokesman. But he expressed deep concern at the growing use of roadside and other improvised bombs across Syria.

France strongly condemned Wednesday's bomb attack on a convoy of U.N. observers in Syria, including the Norwegian major general heading the mission, foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said.

"We strongly condemn the attack targeting the convoy of General Robert Mood, head of the Syrian observer mission," said Valero. "We hold the Damascus regime responsible for the observers' security."

A roadside blast hit troops escorting U.N. observers in Syria's south on Wednesday, a day after envoy Kofi Annan warned that his peace plan could be the last chance to avoid civil war, while several people were killed or wounded in violence across the country.

The explosive device, apparently planted underground, wounded six Syrian soldiers escorting the convoy as it entered the city of Daraa, cradle of a 14-month uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime.