WASHINGTON — A United States Drug Enforcement Administration agent shot a man to death in Honduras during a raid on a smuggling operation early Saturday, a spokesman for the American Embassy in Honduras said Sunday. The man who was killed had been reaching for his weapon, the official said, and the agent fired in self-defense.

The shooting brought further attention to the growing American involvement in counternarcotics operations in Central America. Commando-style squads of D.E.A. agents have been working with local security forces in several countries and have been present at several firefights in Honduras in which people have died in the last 15 months.

The latest episode, however, is the first in which the United States government has said that an American agent, rather than a Honduran police officer, has killed a suspect. The shooting underscored the delicate issues of national sovereignty raised by the growing American participation in the operations.

The episode began early Saturday when a suspected smuggling plane landed at an airstrip south of the village of Brus Laguna, the embassy spokesman, Stephen Posivak, said in a phone interview.