Benazir Bhutto leaves for Dubai

Babar said she had to return from the airport because she was carrying her old passport, which had expired.

8220;She left this morning,8221; he said, adding that she would stay in Dubai for three or four days.

Bhutto, who returned to Pakistan from eight years in self-exile on October 18, is leading her opposition party into the January 8 general elections, but has said she may boycott the vote if it is not free and fair.

Her October homecoming parade in the southern city of Karachi was targeted by a suicide bombing that killed 139 people.

Two weeks later she left for Dubai to see her children and ailing mother, but returned home almost immediately after President Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency in Pakistan on November 3.

Musharraf has promised to lift emergency rule on December 16.