Problem completing remotes when .git/remotes exits

I have an empty .git/remotes directory. Trying to complete the name of
a remote always reports an error:

git@master:1023> git fetch <TAB>ls: invalid option -- ' '
Try `ls --help' for more information.

I have these:

	alias ls='ls $LS_OPTIONS'
and
	LS_OPTIONS='-N --color=tty -T 0'

I instrumented __git_remotes with set -x, which shows:

git@master:1006> git fetch <TAB>+++ __gitdir

+++ '[' -z '' ']'
+++ '[' -n '' ']'
+++ '[' -n '' ']'
+++ '[' -d .git ']'
+++ echo .git
++ local i 'IFS=

' d=.git
++ test -d .git/remotes
++ ls '-N --color=tty -T 0' -1 .git/remotes
ls: invalid option -- ' '
Try `ls --help' for more information.
...

Notice that the expansion of $LS_OPTIONS is not split at the blanks,
obviously, because $IFS does not contain a blank at that moment.

The patch below helps, but it looks like a work-around rather than a
solution. Ideas?

diff --git a/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash b/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash
index be800e0..824f5b6 100644
--- a/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash
+++ b/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash

@@ -369,8 +369,9 @@ __git_refs_remotes ()
 
 __git_remotes ()
 {
-	local i IFS=$'\n' d="$(__gitdir)"
+	local i d="$(__gitdir)"
 	test -d "$d/remotes" && ls -1 "$d/remotes"
+	local IFS=$'\n'
 	for i in $(git --git-dir="$d" config --get-regexp 'remote\..*\.url' 2>/dev/null); do
 		i="${i#remote.}"
 		echo "${i/.url*/}"