BBC: Osama bin Laden was plotting to kill US President Barack Obama, US media reports say.
The plans are said to be in papers found in the compound in Abbottabad where the al-Qaeda leader was killed by US special forces last year.
Bin Laden asked deputies to plan an attack against an aircraft carrying Mr Obama and General David Petraeus.
He said the killing would throw the US into crisis, as Vice President Biden was "totally unprepared" to take over.
The documents were seen by the Washington Post. There is growing anticipation in the US over government plans to publish all the papers seized at the compound when it was raided in May 2011.
Laptops, notepads and computer hard drives were also taken.
Bin Laden asked one of his deputies, Ilyas Kashmiri, to start preparing the attack.
"Please ask brother Ilyas to send me the steps he has taken into that work," he wrote in a 48-page note.
The US media says intelligence officials believe it is unlikely that al-Qaeda had the capacity to launch such an attack in the US, and have not seen evidence of any preparations.
Kashmiri was killed in a US air attack a month after the death of Bin Laden.
In his 48-page note Bin Laden called on al-Qaeda operatives to move away from the Pakistani tribal areas because of the constant attacks by US remotely-controlled planes.
He also debated changing al-Qaeda's name, because US officials "have largely stopped using the phrase 'the war on terror' in the context of not wanting to provoke Muslims", he said.
