Does '24' portray Muslims poorly?

Spoiler alert! You may want to skip this if you haven't seen the newest episodes of 24 yet.

AP, writing out of heavily-Muslim Clifton, N.J.:

CLIFTON, N.J. -- Two years ago, Muslim groups protested when the plot of the hit Fox drama 24 cast Islamic terrorists as the villains who launched a stolen nuclear missile in an attack on America.
Now, after a one-year respite during which Russian separatists played the bad guys on the critically acclaimed series, Muslims are back in the evil spotlight. Unlike last time, when agent Jack Bauer saved the day, the terrorists this time have already succeeded in detonating a nuclear bomb in a Los Angeles suburb.
Being portrayed again as the heartless wrongdoers has drawn renewed protests from Muslim groups, including one that had a meeting with Fox executives two years ago over the issue. "The overwhelming impression you get is fear and hatred for Muslims," said Rabiah Ahmed, a spokeswoman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations.
She said Thursday she was distressed by this season's premiere. "After watching that show, I was afraid to go to the grocery store because I wasn't sure the person next to me would be able to differentiate between fiction and reality."
She said the group had a conference call Wednesday with Fox executives to protest the current plot line and request more positive portrayals of Muslims on the show, but was not promised anything. After a January 2005 meeting with CAIR, Fox aired a commercial in which the show's star, Kiefer Sutherland, urged viewers to keep in mind that the show's villains are not representative of all Muslims.
*snip*
Sohail Mohammed, a New Jersey immigration lawyer who represented scores of detainees caught up in the post Sept. 11, 2001 dragnet, watched the episode depicting the nuclear attack with an Associated Press reporter.
"I was shocked," he said. "Somewhere, some lunatic out there watching this will do something to an innocent American Muslim because he believes what he saw on TV."
Engy Abdelkader, a member of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee from Howell, N.J., launched a campaign Wednesday to encourage Muslims offended by the program to complain to Fox.
"I found the portrayal of American Muslims to be pretty horrendous," she said. "It was denigrating from beginning to end. This is one of the most popular programs on television today. It's pretty distressing."

Read the whole article here.

For the record, the article never points out the nice family who tries to help their beseiged Muslim neighbor (which, however, DOES happen to turn out badly). Either way, anyone who takes their opinions on another race/religion from TV is beyond crazy (or the product of bad parenting). It's fiction, and people know that.

Is it me, or is this the same as the ridiculous claims that Sopranos portrayed Italian-Americans poorly?